InterMat's All-Quarter Century Team: Arizona State

Our All-Quarter Century team takes us out west to focus on the Arizona State program. This is a team that has gone through a couple of head coaches, had its ups and downs, and even was on the chopping block for a brief time in 2008. Despite all of that, there has been a lot to celebrate for the Sun Devils over the last 25 years.

Arizona State has been home to some of the biggest stars in college wrestling over the last quarter-century. Eric Larkin is one of only three wrestlers from the West Coast to win the Hodge Trophy. Anthony Robles defied the odds in a Sun Devils singlet. A few matches after Robles’ NCAA championship win, Bubba Jenkins posted one of the most memorable moments in an NCAA final with his fall over a freshman (and ex-teammate) David Taylor. Zahid Valencia earned two NCAA titles, a Senior World medal, and will continue to add to his resume at the 2025 World Championships.

In constructing our first, second, and third teams for Sun Devil wrestling this quarter century, we had to get creative from 141-157 lbs. Eric Larkin earned All-American honors at three different weights and won his Hodge at 149, but 141 was the weight with the least amount of options, so that’s where he went. Technically, Bubba Jenkins never wrestled at 149 lbs for ASU, but he spent the bulk of his career at the weight. Putting Jenkins at 149 lbs allows for an NCAA finalist to be inserted at 157 (and they had two options).

There were a couple of tough decisions with ASU - namely at 125 and 149 lbs. At 125, we gave the second team nod to Brandon Courtney over Richie Figueroa. Courtney has three All-American finishes and a final appearance. Figueroa has a national title, but missed the podium last year and has transferred, so he won’t be able to put up any more numbers in an ASU singlet.

At 149 lbs, looking strictly at the numbers, it would seem like Jason Tsirtsis’ career warrants first-team honors. Since he only wrestled one year at ASU and was seventh, I felt the wrestlers above him had more of a direct impact for the Sun Devils.

As always, if you have thoughts or your version of the team, leave them in the comments or InterMat’s forums.

Wrestlers considered for the three teams had to compete from 2001 to 2025. For the wrestlers early in this timeframe, their entire collegiate body of work was considered. Only collegiate results were taken into consideration. Even if a wrestler was successful at multiple weights, they were only selected for one weight - typically, it was based on the strongest possible first team.

After the three All-Century teams, there are some fun facts about Iowa State’s results over the past 25 years.

Here are the programs we’ve already covered

Cornell

Illinois

Iowa State

Lehigh

Minnesota

Missouri

NC State

First Team

125 lbs - Anthony Robles: Mesa, Arizona - 3x AA (1,7,4), 2011 NCAA champion, 3x Pac-10 champion

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