Current wrestlers
In 2016, InterMat paid tribute to a trio of active wrestlers who died that year. Andrew Esquivel, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) wrestling team captain who was about to enter his senior year, was struck and killed by a SUV driven by an off-duty New York City police officer in Brooklyn in July. He was 21. That same month, Lane Dickeson, a redshirt freshman wrestler at Notre Dame College of Ohio and two-time Tennessee high school state championships medalist, lost his life in a single-vehicle crash at age 19. In December, Ryan Estrada, a heavyweight wrestler at Saline High School in Michigan, was found unresponsive in the school's locker room before practice and died at the hospital the next day.
Collegiate champs
Kevin RandlemanFormer college mat stars
The past year saw the passing of a number of former college wrestlers, from athletes of recent memory, to those whose time on the mat was decades ago.
Among the wrestlers of the past decade or so who died in 2016: Jimmy Vollrath, who wrestled for Penn State at 157 pounds from 2009-2014, died in December from Ewing's sarcoma, a rare form of cancer ... Cody Gardner, 28, former Virginia Tech and Ohio State wrestler, whose body was discovered Dec. 2 at a home in southwest Virginia ... Tom Patterson, 23, former Briar Cliff University wrestler and volunteer coach for the Sioux City, Iowa school, went missing in the Missouri River after going in to rescue a friend during Labor Day weekend and whose body was found downstream ten days later ... Brandon McDonough, 30, state champion wrestler in Iowa who went on to earn All-American honors in NCAA Division III at Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island ... Matt Keller, 33, four-time Tennessee high school state champion wrestler who went on to compete at University of Nebraska-Lincoln then earn All-American honors at University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, was shot to death by a homeowner in Marion County, Tennessee in mid-September ... Ziad Kharbush, 26, who had been a starter for Brown University for two years, died from complications of Type 1 diabetes in May ... Garrett Scott, three-time Pennsylvania state champ and former Penn State and Edinboro University wrestler, died in Michigan in February ... Chad Sindoni, 26, former Edinboro University wrestler, Pennsylvania high school state finalist, and high school teacher and coach, died in a traffic accident in New York State in January ... the same month, Jared Platt, who had wrestled at Blair Academy and Penn State, competed in mixed martial arts, and coached, died at age 26 after having been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer last fall ... and Justin Chrzanowski, 28, former University of Michigan wrestler-turned-actor, died in early January.
College wrestlers of the past who departed this year included James "Jimbo" Elrod, 62, upper-weight wrestler and football star at the University of Oklahoma in the early 1970s, was killed in a single-vehicle wreck on I-44 in his native Oklahoma in late December ... Anthony Bellai, a New York state champion wrestler, national junior college champ, and NCAA qualifier for the Oklahoma Sooners who went on to serve as a high school instructor and wrestling coach, died in his home in upstate New York in September at age 51 ... Duane Waters, 75, a wrestler at Iowa State Teachers College (now University of Northern Iowa) in the early 1960s who was active in the sport before and after college, passed away after complications from a stroke in September, while another UNI wrestler, Bill Donnelly, who wrestled for the Panthers in the late 1970s, lost his battle with colon cancer at age 57 ... Don Buzzard, Iowa high school state champ, then Iowa State NCAA wrestling finalist, died in April at age 69 ... and Bob Hartman, 84, first wrestler to earn NCAA All-American honors for Columbia University (in 1951) who went on to share his mat expertise as a collegiate coach, passed away March 15.
College coaches
In 2016, InterMat reported on the deaths of some retired college wrestling coaches. Dan Hinkel, who served as head wrestling coach at Pennsylvania's Kutztown University twice -- first from 1965 to 1972, then from 1989 to 1996 -- died in early October. Ron Finley, former Oregon State wrestler, 1964 U.S. Olympic team member and long-time (28 years) head wrestling coach at the now-defunct University of Oregon wrestling program, died in early July after a sustained cancer battle at age 75. Jim Kinyon, Oklahoma State wrestler who started his coaching career at high schools in Oklahoma, then coached at Colorado State University until the program's demise, passed away in February at age 80. In January, Chris Ford, 83, former Ohio State head wrestling coach from 1976-86, died while on a hunting trip with one of his sons.
High school coaches
A number of past and current high school wrestling coaches passed away in 2016. Just after Christmas, John Brown, West Virginia state champion wrestler, Mt. Vernon High School (Ohio) wrestling coach and mat official, died in a car crash in West Virginia at age 53. Maynard Aungst, two-time Pennsylvania state wrestling champion for Lock Haven High School in the late 1950s who went on coach at high schools in New York State, died in December at 76. September saw the passing of at least three coaches: Art Steves, 80, head coach at Pennsylvania's Fort LeBoeuf High from 1963-1989 who coached 23 District 10 champions and three state champs (despite never having been a wrestler) ... Alex Tetzloff, 21, assistant wrestling coach at Perkins High School in Sandusky, Ohio, died in an ATV accident in Indiana ... and Sam Lovello, Pennsylvania high school wrestling coach who accumulated over 500 wins in 39 seasons at Brandywine Heights and Wilson High schools, died at age 69. Bill "Red" Schmitt, wrestling coach at Illinois' Granite City High School just outside St. Louis from 1950-1985 -- eventually accumulating 1,400 wins -- passed away in August at 94. The same month, Bob Boesen, whose 50+ year wrestling coaching career at Sacred Heart and Columbus High schools in Waterloo, Iowa through the 2016 season, died at age 83.
International
This past year, InterMat wrote of the passing of two international wrestling competitors under unusual -- and tragic -- circumstances. In November, Reem Magdy, 16-year-old medal-winning women's freestyle wrestler for Egypt, died in what at first appeared to be a hit-and-run incident ... but investigators later alleged that her father, Magdy Kaboria -- himself a champion wrestler of the past -- had repeatedly beaten his daughter which led to her death. This summer, the body of Adlan Varayev, former wrestler and coach, was found weeks after he fell off a cliff and into a river while posing for a photo. Varayev, who won the silver medal in men's freestyle at 74 kilograms/163 pounds for the Soviet Union at the 1988 Seoul Olympics (having lost to USA's Kenny Monday in the gold-medal match), later became vice-president of the Russian Wrestling Federation. He was 54.
Former wrestlers who died in service to their communities
InterMat reported on two matmen of the past who died while on duty in their chosen careers as patrolmen in 2016. Des Moines police Sgt. Anthony "Tony" Beminio, who won the heavyweight title at the Iowa high school state championships for Iowa City West High School in 1996, was one of two officers killed in separate "ambush-style" shootings the same evening allegedly by the same man in the Des Moines area in early November ... while New Jersey state trooper Sean Cullen, 31, who wrestled at Cinnaminson High School in New Jersey and then at Pennsylvania's Lycoming College, was struck and killed helping to direct traffic around an accident scene on I-295 in Deptford in March.
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