Why Isn’t There a Team Gorriaran Award?
The Gorriaran Award needs its day.
For those of you who do not know what the Gorriaran is, and apparently there are quite a few, it is given to the wrestler every year who has the most pins in the least amount of time at the NCAA Tournament.
Named after its creator, Manuel Gorriaran, it has been awarded every tournament since 1949. You can find a list of past winners here: (Wrestling.Guru GA List). The award was created with the belief that the pin was the ultimate goal of amateur wrestling. And our bonus point system reinforces that belief – with pins accounting for the highest achievable.
It is a shame then that the NCAA does not do more to promote the award given that any wrestling fans would agree with the spirit behind the award. It would be nice to see the award handed out at the same time as the team trophies and announced on the official broadcast. Instead we get a tweet from the team the next day (PJ Duke) (Cam Steed), or not at all (Keegan O’Toole?).
“We Get Nowhere Without The Team”
But we can take this one step further. And should.
In addition to announcing the Gorriaran winner during the finals broadcast and awarding the trophy (or at least acknowledging the winner) during the team presentation), it seems to me that we should also have a team version of the award.
Teams garner reputations for being bonus point monsters. The crowd erupts when a pin happens. We fans all talk about it. Youtube is jammed with mash ups of pin after pin after pin. We can’t get enough. So lets formalize this with the recognition the ultimate in bonus points deserves.
An award should go to the team that has the most pins in the least amount of time – The Team Gorriaran Award. And I think we should award these retroactively too.
To that end I have compiled the list of “Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda Past Theoretical Team Goriaran Award Winners, If Only We’d Thought of It At The Time”.
Team Gorriaran Facts:
- The keen-eyed observer would note that Penn State is currently on a four year streak, the second longest in history.
- Iowa State has the longest streak at a seemingly uncatchable seven straight tournaments (1968 – 1974).
- Seven teams have secured double digit pins in a tournament a total of 15 times.
- Oklahoma State is both the single season (1935) and the all-time Team Gorriaran Award winner having led the tournament in pins 18 times.
- Shout out to Franklin & Marshall (1940) and Ithaca (1950) – the little engines that could.
- And whisper it softly, but Clarion, Lehigh, Cornell College, Syracuse, and Edinboro EACH have more Team Gorriaran Awards than Big 10 Powers Ohio State, Illinois, Rutgers, Wisconsin, Indiana, Purdue, and Maryland COMBINED.
Rally The Troops
I get it.
The NCAA is dealing with some stuff right now. It may be hard to get their attention. But for anyone who “has a guy” at the NCAA now is the time to reach out and ask them to do more to promote the non-revenue sports. After all the NCAA could use some PR wins at the moment. And what better way to demonstrate the associations value than by returning to the core mission of promoting student/athletes who are students in more than name alone?
One way to do that is to recognize special achievements. And what could be more special than a team putting up double digit pins in a single NCAA tournament?