By Mike Finn, W.I.N. Editor

Don Schuler, like any native of Arkansas, takes pride being called a Razorback.

         “You’re not born a Razorback. You are instilled it by God when you are born,” said Schuler, who grew up in northwest Arkansas and currently calls Bentonville his home. “You’re a Razorback by the grace of God.”

         Greg Hatcher, a Michigan native who now resides in Little Rock, respects his friend’s description of personal character created in this southern state. But Hatcher said he thinks of another animal when it comes to Schuler.

         “He’s a pesky pit bull,” said Hatcher, who was introduced to Schuler two years when Schuler was trying to find a way to create high school wrestling in Arkansas; one of only two states that aren’t sanctioned by an official state athletic organization. (The other is Mississippi.)

         That will change for Arkansas high school wrestlers in 2009, when the Arkansas Athletic Association officially calls wrestling a varsity high school sport; thanks in large part to the work of Schuler and Hatcher, who calls himself “a professional sales person.”

         “(Schuler) calls all the schools to get them interested and I close the deal,” Hatcher said. “We’re kind of a 1-2 punch.”

         Their attacking style is a big reason that 40 schools added wrestling; making the sport eligible to earn the AAA sanction.

         “Once I grab a hold of something, I’m not going to let go until someone shoots me in the head,” said Schuler, who said his only experience in wrestling came when he lived for a short time in Kansas, where, “I honestly believe that I hold the state record in how much time it took to get me from my feet to my back.”

         Now Schuler, a sales vendor for a local sausage company, is scoring takedowns by convincing Arkansas schools to start wrestling.

         “It’s worked out well for us,” he said. “I’ve been a salesman and don’t think that I’ve been particularly good at it. I can’t sell something unless I have an emotional investment in it. That’s what this is. I love this so much and want it to work.”

         “We wore them down,” said Hatcher. “I’d get them on the phone and said, ‘What is it going to take?’ They’d give us every excuse in the book and we’d just wrestle with them.”

         Hatcher wrestled for Alma College in Michigan before relocating to Little Rock, where he owns an insurance agency. He also has developed a reputation for creating sports opportunities for the youth of Arkansas, including the Mighty Bluebirds, a local club for soccer and wrestling. The head wrestling coach of this organization is former Oklahoma State four-time NCAA champion Pat Smith, who was one of countless people contacted by Schuler.

         “I ended up talking to his brother John (the head coach at Oklahoma State) and then to their brother LeRoy at the (National Wrestling) Hall of Fame,” recalled Schuler, who was looking for a way to create an opportunity for his son, Christian, who started wrestling at a local club. “I basically said, ‘What can we do to start wrestling?’

         “LeRoy said, ‘I don’t know if I can help you, but I’m going to give you the phone number of guy in Arkansas and maybe he can help you.’ Leroy told me this guy was a power or money guy. That guy was Greg Hatcher. The cool part was that I lasted about ten minutes before my ADHD kicked in. I called and told him that I was interested in getting wrestling started in the state and said, ‘How can you help me?’

         “To his credit, Greg was really nice and said, ‘I’ve got some things going on right now.’ He does some other charitable work. He said, ‘I’ve been wanting to have wrestling in this state for some time. I have a young son who I think would enjoy it.’ ”

         “(Starting high school wrestling) was on my to-do list,” said Hatcher, a father of five kids.

         In less than one year, Hatcher and Schuler convinced schools to start the sport by offering wrestling mats and other financial help to such an endeavor.

         “You have to put pressure on them because athletic directors already have their plates filled,” said Hatcher, who raised enough money to buy 20 mats at $10,000 per mat. “I would call them and say, ‘I have five mats left. You better take one.’ The greatest fear in anybody’s life is the takeaway. If you don’t do this, you’re going to lose it. Like if you don’t go after the free mat now, you’re going to lose that opportunity, which would also help with gymnastics or P.E. classes.

         “Without money, nothing happens. You have to have money to give them the incentive to get off their duff. All schools are tight financially.”

         The same thing could be said about Hatcher, who created the Arkansas Wrestling Association in hopes of raising money for this project.

         “I’m not as wealthy as a I sound but I’m a big risk taker,” he said. “So far, I’ve raised about  $36,000. Hopefully, we’ll make $50,000 to 70,000 at the state tournament.”

         Hatcher and Schuler also had conversations with the Arkansas Athletic Association, which said the organization would endorse wrestling if they could find at least 16 schools. Within a year, they had that many and an unofficial state tournament was held last spring in Bentonville, with the thought that the next tournament would have the initials AAA in front of it.

         “We were all excited and said, we reached our goal,” Schuler said. “We came to find out that no, we needed 25 teams, no we needed 30. Finally, they had a vote last year in June and they said,  ‘You’re going to have to have 40 teams.’ I think the reason was that they were nervous that women’s gymnastics had gotten down to less than 16 schools and they could not sanction it any longer.”

         With 40 schools, they will hold another unofficial tournament March 14-15, at the Jack Stephens Center at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock before the AAA offers its first official tournament in 2009.

         Hatcher and Schuler also had to convince people in Arkansas, unfamiliar with wrestling, that the sport was good in many other ways. Among skeptics were football coaches, reluctant to see their athletes deal with losing weight.

         Schuler’s own son broke his collarbone and was unable to lift weights between September of 2006 and April of 2007. Instead, he spent those six months in the wrestling room.

         “Christian went into off-season football and started lifting again and two weeks later on April 15 they did their “maxs” to see what their maximum lifts were,” Schuler recalled. “Christian put up 275 pounds. In one six-month period, his bench went from 200 to 275 without lifting a weight. Right now, he weighs about 145 pounds and can bench  over 315 pounds.”

         Schuler also pointed out that wrestling can help the student as well.

         “I’ve told them how if you get a kid to buy into a sport program, they buy into the school and later their homework,” Schuler said. “I’ve seen kids who struggle in school, but will make a great effort just to stay eligible to make the team. Wrestling is a discipline sport. You have to work your brain cells. That learning does not stop after you leave the mat.”

         When it comes to wrestling in Arkansas, no one is going to stop these Razorbacks.