Lehigh Wrestling: The Early Years

Since 1908, the Lehigh University wrestling team has had incredible success and has created diehard fans within both the Lehigh and Bethlehem communities.

Students began to organize and fund a wrestling club in 1908. The club’s efforts to spread interest in wrestling paid off. In 1911 Lehigh’s athletic committee made the team a minor sport for a one-year trial period, which would continue contingent upon fan support. Because of the fan enthusiasm shown, wrestling was made a major sport and ultimately admitted to the Eastern Conference in 1912.

In 1912, the legendary coach Billy Sheridan arrived. Over his 41 year career, he was instrumental in laying a ground work for decades of excellence in wrestling at Lehigh. The 1920s and 1930s marked the beginning of the team’s domination of the EIWA conference, winning their first EIWA championship in 1928. In the 1930s they began to achieve national success. John Engel became their first national champion at the fourth NCAA tournament at Brown University. The wrestling team achieved 12 national titles during the decade (the rest of the EIWA had a total five All-Americans in that time). The 1939 team placed second overall at the NCAA tournament and is considered one of the best teams in Lehigh’s history.

First Picture: Billy Sheridan coaching team, 1940
[Group portrait/ Sheridan, W/ Wrestling, F6147], Lehigh Photographs Collection, Special Collections, Lehigh University Libraries, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

Second Picture: Grace Hall 1949
[Crowd/Grace Hall/Wrestling,F6192], Lehigh Photographs Collection, Special Collections, Lehigh University Libraries, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania