Haledon honors Bruce Baumgartner, world champion wrestler
By: Jake Aferiat | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
Bruce Baumgartner never aspired to any of this.
And yet, that’s exactly the point.
Baumgartner, who grew up on Mason Ave in Haledon as the younger of two brothers, did as all younger brothers do and followed his older brother Bob Jr.’s lead.
If Bob tried football, so did Bruce. Baseball, same thing.
Nothing captured Bruce’s interest or attention until Bob — who’s three years older than Bruce — went out for the high school wrestling team at Manchester Regional.
Up to that point, Bruce Baumgartner’s only exposure to the sport had been wrestling with Bob in the living room of their house in the tiny 1.22 square mile Passaic County town.
But whether through brotherly intuition or some other factor, Bob thought Bruce had some talent in the sport. How much and how far that would take his younger brother remained to be seen.
“When he started wrestling with me in the living room, he knew nothing,” Bob Baumgartner told NJ Advance Media. “I knew a little bit more than he did, but I was older than him, beating him up. He wound up realizing, as he got into high school that as a 180 pound freshman, he could hold his own with 170 pound junior. And that started him on the realization that he’s got some potential.”
It was hardly a large enough sample size or broad enough exposure to the sport to suggest that Bruce would soon outgrow the confines of Haledon and New Jersey and wrestling as a whole. Instead, he etched his name as the most decorated American wrestler in the sport’s history with four Olympic medals (two golds, a bronze and a silver) and nine World medals (three golds, silvers and bronzes).
To this day, Bruce doesn’t know why he gravitated toward wrestling, especially after an inauspicious start in the sport where he got pinned his first ever match and went 3-3 as a freshman, with his three wins coming by forfeit.
But that Baumgartner went from such smallness — a small high school in a small town in New Jersey with a meager win total to then wrestling a small college with a defunct wrestling team before becoming a coach and AD at a Division II school in Erie, Pa. with a Division I wrestling team — to such a meteoric rise and such profound greatness is a tale of irony that’s not lost on the younger Baumgartner.
In fact, it was by design and served as part of the main reason behind Baumgartner’s return to his hometown on Friday night. To show the next generation of Manchester wrestlers exactly what’s possible and that you don’t have to be Bruce Baumgartner to have your career be considered a success.
There’s no rec program in the town, which puts Haledon and Manchester at a significant disadvantage. Where most teams in the area are getting wrestlers who’ve been involved in the sport for years, Manchester is getting kids like Baumgartner who just started the sport in high school.
“Everybody deserves respect,” Bruce told NJ Advance Media. “As long as you do the right things and you work hard — we’re not all going to be great wrestlers — but I think as a coach, you hope you have a positive impact on not just your handful of star stars, but on the whole team.”
Baumgartner returned home on Friday as part of an effort to raise money both to help refurbish the Haledon Rec Center, but also to help raise money to start a youth wrestling program in the area.
“I lent my time and effort in name to help raise money. I’m not a big donor of this project, but I believe in it,” Bruce said. “And if sharing my life story and my accolades with with people and kids can help raise money to to renovate the building and get the program started, it’s pretty gratifying.”
The event and goals were the brainchild of Manchester Regional coach Dave Heitman, and all stemmed from a memory he’d like to forget. But, try as he might, it still lingers.
Six years ago, Heitman took over as head wrestling coach at Manchester Regional.
Anyone who’s more than casual fan of New Jersey high school wrestling and even wrestling in general might readily identify that as hallowed ground responsible for producing Baumgartner.
And yet, that wasn’t the case for Heitman and the wrestlers in his room. A former head coach for 13 seasons at his alma mater Northern Highlands and for six years at Mahwah, Heitman came to Manchester at a time when no one in his wrestling room had much of a sense of who Baumgartner was, even after Baumgartner came back to visit.
That failure to truly appreciate the magnitude of the moment, coupled with what he felt was an insufficient amount of signage and honorifics to Baumgartner has bothered Heitman since then.
It bothered Bob Baumgartner, too. Bob was a lifelong training partner for Bruce, who readily admits Bob helped him get better in high school, then in college at Indiana State and beyond and is part of a team of partners and supporters without whom Bruce says his career wouldn’t be possible.
“The average 11 year old knows Cael Sanderson or Kyle Dake or Kyle Snyder or Jordan Burroughs,” Bob said. “They don’t remember Bruce. It’s just disappointing sometimes, because when you look at the history of it, those guys are all great, but Bruce is what they’re standing on top of and I’m very proud to be associated with that.”
None of that ever bothered Bruce, though.
“He doesn’t wear his medals on his shoulders and he’ll never bring it up,” Bruce’s wife of over 40 years Linda told NJ Advance Media. “He didn’t do it for the awards. No, he did it for his own personal enjoyment. He worked really hard. He wanted to win. Sometimes it didn’t work out, and sometimes it did. But none of that was his vision. He just loved the sport.”
The school was gifted an Olympic torch and plans to do more both inside and outside the gym and wrestling room to make sure Baumgartner’s legacy endures, a task Heitman takes incredibly personally.
Baumgartner was also gifted a key to the city of Haledon by mayor Michael Johnson and was given a special commendation by Congresswoman Nellie Pou, who represents Haledon in the United States House of Representatives.
But now, after his entire team and wrestlers of the past came out to listen to Baumgartner and other speak and as Baumgartner signed autographs after the event, Heitman doesn’t have to worry about Baumgartner’s legacy falling by the wayside at Manchester or in Haledon ever again.
“This town needs a hero and they have a hero. We’re the only town in America that can lay claim to this guy,” Heitman told NJ Advance Media. “They see him. They know who he is. He’s just a regular guy, but his work ethic and his character brought him to a whole other level. They needed to see that. People can’t tell you about that. You have to see it, feel it touch it got to see it. And now the town, the mayor, everybody knows this is his town and we’re going to honor that.”
Why Bruce Baumgartner broke out and reached the heights he did, he doesn’t know.
“What makes me better than the other hundreds of athletes that tried to be a world champion?” Baumgartner said. “Did I like it more? Did I work out more? Was I more mentally tough? Was I stronger? I wasn’t the strongest. I had pretty good technique, but probably not the best. So there’s no perfect reason.”
And while the culmination of his career has led to Haledon being the town that Bruce Baumgartner built, he and Heitman and everyone else knows success isn’t measured by comparing yourself to Bruce Baumgartner.
No, because there’s only one Bruce Baumgartner and after all, he never aspired to any of this.
And yet, that’s exactly the point.
The next Baumgartner may well come once again from an unlikely place at an unlikely time with humble beginnings. Maybe even from Haledon and Manchester Regional.
In the meantime, Baumgartner and others will view success through a different lens.
“You hope by providing an opportunity here at the Haledon Rec Center and at Manchester Regional that the coaches and teachers and the parents and the mentors that are here with these kids, they make a positive impact on those kids’ lives and that they have opportunities.”
Jake Aferiat can be reached at jaferiat@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him at @Jake_Aferiat.
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