Simpson marks first wrestling great enshrined in MTSU Hall

September 20, 2021 - Uncategorized - no comments
Simpson marks first wrestling great enshrined in MTSU Hall

Former MTSU wrestler Patrick Simpson will be the first inducted into the Blue Raider Hall of Fame in his sports on Saturday. MTSU ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS

Gordon Connell had just been hired as the first ever head coach of the MTSU wrestling program, and he knew who his first call was going to be: Patrick Simpson.

The high school senior was just coming off a heartbreaking loss in the Tennessee State Tournament, falling in the final of the 122 pound division by just one point. But his performance had caught the young coach’s eye, impressed with Simpson’s relentlessness and raw talent on the mat.

“I figured that this guy has got a lot of fight,” Connell said. “He didn’t like to lose, he had that fighting spirit.”

Simpson took a visit to Murfreesboro shortly thereafter, and signed to become one of the first varsity wrestlers in Blue Raider history. Wrestling primarily at 126 pounds, Simpson quickly established himself as one of the team’s top threats on the mat, and wrestled his way to become the first Blue Raider to compete in the NCAA Championships, when he won the NCAA Regional in 1979. He remains the only MT wrestler to ever win a regional title in program history.

“Back in the beginning of the season, I beat a kid that placed fifth in the country the year before,” Simpson said of his senior year campaign. “And that’s when it kind of dawned on me that I better change my goals, and the goal should be to get to the NCAAs.”

The path for Simpson wasn’t easy. As a young program, MT was often competing against the top schools in the southeast for the dual meets. Connell compared it to a modern FBS football team facing a SEC or Big Ten squad every other game. An injury the season prior, a hyperextended elbow earned in competition, forced Simpson to miss the previous season as well, so he’d be fighting from a lower seeded position.

But he had some advantages too. Namely, assistant coach Mohammad Ghorbani, a world champion at 52 kg at the 1971 World Wrestling Championships from Iran, who moved to the U.S. shortly thereafter and ended up in Murfreesboro. After knocking on Connell’s door one day and offering his help, Ghorbani and Simpson often sparred, given the two’s similar size.

“Pat began to learn moves from him that were not used anywhere in the country,” Connell said. “He was doing things ten years ahead of the rest of the country, as far as technique goes.”

The off year meant Simpson entered the NCAA Regional at Notre Dame as the five seed in his weight class, meaning he needed to knock off three higher seeded opponents to claim the Regional title.

“I wrestled the three best matches probably of my career,” Simpson said. “The guy I beat in the finals of the region ended up being a two-time NCAA champion. At the time, he was just a freshman.”

Connell said two more MT wrestlers would go on to qualify for the NCAAs the next season, which would end up being the program’s last as a varsity sport. Simpson, for his part, remembers the wrestling, but also the special memories he got to share his senior season with two of his brothers who joined him in the starting lineup for the Blue Raiders. Jim, just a freshman at the time, started at 134 pounds, while Frank, just a year behind Pat, started at 142 pounds.

For Connell, he’s grateful that the Hall of Fame honoring Simpson’s career will help honor the wrestling program as a whole, a program that many Blue Raiders have forgotten about in the decades since it was dropped.

“What Pat’s induction is doing is it’s at least saying that yes, Middle had a wrestling team, at one time,” Connell said. “A lot of people have no recollection of it at all, but the fact that he’s being inducted at least gives the program some representation.”

Simpson went on to become one of the best wrestling coaches in the state of Tennessee’s history, coaching for over 45 years at his alma mater, Father Ryan High School, where he won 20 state championships and was named Coach of the Year by the Middle Tennessee Wrestling Coaches Association numerous times. That Father Ryan connection is something that especially touches Simpson about his induction, beyond just the personal honor itself, in that he’ll be joining his former Father Ryan teacher, Boots Donnelly, in the Blue Raider Hall of Fame.

“He was a student there, he came back and coached there,” Simpson said. “I didn’t play football because I was 100 pounds. But I love Coach Donnelly and to be able to go into the hall of fame that he’s in, it’s just an honor.”