Wrestling, according to Coach Pat Johnson, is the oldest recognized sport in the world. Since he's grapple mentor for the Harvard grant-and-groaners, one might expect this to be a slightly prejudiced statement, but when the slender Crimson coach made the remark, he added that he had taken a couple of anthropology courses which ought to be good enough authority.

It seems that when the genus home finally became a biped instead of a monkey, the tendency in battle was not to grab a meat axe, but to wrestle. Gradually the set-to between cavemen grew into an activity practiced for amusement's sake. The sport reached a high point in development with the Graeco-Roman method in the west and the Oriental style in the east.

"The two styles of wrestling were entirely different," Pat remarked. "The Roman technique was to work on the upper part of the body, while the Japs and Chinese relied more on tricky leg work. The Roman style is that copied by most college teams today. That's where the flying mare, the hiplock and the headlock come from. As to the hold known as the 'Oklahoma Ride', that was originated by the Romans. The boys from out west just appropriated it."

Jiu-Jitsu Not So Tough

When Japanese wrestling was mentioned, the inevitable question about jiu-jitsu was raised. Pat calls jiu-jitsu a type of "aesthetic dancing." A good wrestler can lick a jiu-jitsu expert any time, provided the combatants don't wear jackets while fighting, Pat declared. The art of jiu-jitsu is used to teach detectives, army and navy officers, G-men, and policemen how to disarm a man, and the numerous choke holds are the basis of the art. Choke holds cannot be used unless the opponent is wearing a jacket or coat which can be used as a lever to twist across the throat. "Without these jackets, the jiu-jitsu man hasn't a chance with a regular wrestler," Pat declared.

Pat calls jiu-jitsu "aesthetic dancing" because the contestants move in rhythm, keeping in step. "A wrestler won't keep in step; he'll change his attack. And a jiu-jitsu man cannot work unless his opponent agrees to keep in step."

Oklahoma Okay

Going on with the history of wrestling, Pat observed that in the 19th century the sport made great progress. "The eastern states in this country took up the Roman style, while the far west, because of its contact with the Orient, adopted the Japanese technique. The Oklahoma wrestlers tried to combine the two, and that is one reason why they put out the finest grapplers in the game."

At the present, according to Pat, out of 200 Oklahoma high schools, there are a 100 that can beat the best prep teams in the east, notably Andover, Choate, Taft, Gilman, and Lawrenceville. In the last few years, however, wrestling in the East has taken big strides. The influx of new coaches from the west, such as Cliff Gallagher at Harvard, Jay Ricks at M.I.T., and Dick Cole at Brown, has been a major factor in the change.

In 1929 wrestling was made an intercollegiate sport at Harvard, the year that Pat Johnson started his wrestling career here which culminated in the winning of the national championship in the 135-pound class. About this time Lehigh was becoming the foremost eastern wrestling representative, a position which it has maintained ever since. Harvard was admitted into the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling League, at the time a rather exclusive organization, due to the efforts of Bill Bingham, whose love of the sport has been an important factor in the rise of Harvard wrestling.