Burtnett Immortalized
'Father of Rider wrestling' inducted into National Wrestling Hall of Fame

By Leo D. Rommel

In the end, destiny prevailed.

Barry Burtnett was not supposed to be a wrestler, at least not according to his parents. His father was a basketball coach. Shooting hoops was in the blood. It certainly had its advantages: he could learn hands-on from his father, he was fit and unusually fast, and well, it made his parents happy, and that was the important part.

Imagine his surprise, 52 years later, when he was named a proud inductee of the … National Wrestling Hall of Fame?

Yup.

Burtnett, 67, well-known as the founder of varsity wrestling at Rider, was inducted into the New Jersey Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame on Sept. 24, at the Westin Inn in Princeton, N.J. A 2002 inductee of the Rider Hall of Fame, Burtnett was presented the Lifetime Service to Wrestling Award for his enduring work as a player, coach, clinician, official, director, administrator and committee chairperson.

“I have always loved wrestling,” said Burtnett. “I have given my all to the sport, and I have dedicated my life to showing others what its all about. Given that award was a tremendous honor.”

Burtnett is one of two Rider representatives in the New Jersey Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. Francis Dunn, a 1997 graduate and the winner of three individual conference championships as an undergraduate, is also a member.

Burtnett came to Rider in 1968 as an assistant director of intramurals. Soon thereafter, he immediately jump-started wrestling as a club sport until the team was granted varsity status a year later.

“Barry is the father of Rider wrestling,” said Gary Taylor, Burtnett’s successor at Rider who has won 319 dual meets and 13 conference championships in 28 years of work. “He started it all. He laid down a strong platform. Without him, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

The wrestling team went 94-39 in nine years under Burtnett’s direction. Most memorable were the 1972-73 and 1973-74 squads, the first of which won the now-defunct Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) championship and the second of which went 15-0-1 en route to an undefeated season. Altogether, Burtnett produced 14 individual conference champions from 1968 to 1977.

“One of my favorite memories at Rider is the 1973 MAC Wrestling Championship against our longtime rival Hofstra,” said Burtnett. “I particularly remember Mario Ianni and Joe Vento. I remember Joe winning his final match with a takedown with 20 or 30 seconds to go to clinch our first conference championship.”

Burtnett, a current resident of The Village, a retirement community near Orlando, Fla., also acknowledged that nine of his wrestlers played in the top four of their weight classes that year.

After handpicking Gary Taylor to succeed him in 1978, Burtnett stepped down as head coach to be Rider’s first full-time athletic trainer, a position he held for 10 year. Afterwards, he left Rider to return to the public school system where he served as both a head athletic trainer and a health and physical education instructor at Nottingham High in Hamilton Township, N.J.

In 1991, he was appointed athletic director at Nottingham before switching to Steinert High in 1992 as a teacher and assistant to the wrestling team and the athletic trainers.

And there’s more: he’s currently a volunteer for The Villages wrestling team, he’s donned a referee’s shirt for 25 years, he has supervised tournaments at the 1975 and 1981 NCAA championships and he founded both the Mechanicsburg (Pa.)
High School wrestling program and Hamilton (N.J.) Police Athletic League.

“I have given just as much to the game as it has given to me,” said Burtnett.

And to think, all these achievements from a man who began his athletic career as, of all things, a basketball player.

The Bedford, Pa., native was out of luck when he was cut from his high school’s basketball team during his sophomore year of high school. Nonetheless, thanks to superior strength, a sharp mind and an uncanny dedication to succeed, Burtnett found himself as the starting 95-pounder on the wrestling team just two weeks later.

Thing was, his parents, who perceived wrestling as a brutal, overly aggressive sport, didn’t know about it. Mercifully, he never had to tell his mother. Instead, the local community newspaper’s sports section did it for him.

“I had to get a permission slip signed the night before our first match,” said Burtnett. “I remember being nervous until my coach came up to me and said ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s been taken care of.’”

After a telephone conversation with the wrestling coach eased Burtnett’s parents’ apprehension, they attended his first match of the year. It was there they discovered another one of Burtnett’s secrets: a young girl standing and screaming in front of them in the stands.

“That’s when they met Judy,” said Burtnett. “Judy was my girlfriend of two weeks at the time. She would eventually become my wife for 47 years.”

A complete reversal of fortune followed: Burtnett’s parents went from anti-wrestling to enthusiastic fans, so much so that they did not miss a match at Bedford High School for 20 years. Likewise, his brother, Fred, would also go on to wrestle.

Following a brilliant high school career on an undefeated team, Burtnett went on to Lock Haven State College, where he wrestled for four seasons at 157 lbs., finishing third in the Pennsylvania State Teacher’s College Conference. After graduation, Burtnett went to Dormont High School in Pittsburgh, where he coached the school’s first regional champion wrestler and led the team to an unprecedented 10-2 mark.

After pausing to reflect, Burtnett giggled and joked, “It’s a good thing basketball didn’t work out.”

Yes, good thing.