Dressed To The Kilt Gimmicks Aside, Edinboro Is An Ncaa Division I Wrestling Power

Edinboro University’s wrestling team is all dressed up with someplace to go: the NCAA tournament.

Some teams are outfitted by Starter, others by Nike, but Edinboro might be the only men’s team in the country that wears Liz Claiborne. Not only do the Fighting Scots come dressed to kill, they come dressed in kilts - plaid ones, fashionably below-the-knee length with cute little pleats.

Not to skirt the issue, but how did some of the macho men of college athletics end up dressing for their team picture in … dresses?

“We were looking for a catchy poster to sell as a fund-raiser, and my assistant, Tim Flynn, came up with the idea,” said coach Bruce Baumgartner, a two-time Olympic champion and four-time medalist. “They shot the guys bare-chested and in sweatshirts, and we liked the bare-chested look best.”

And the poster is selling so well, with orders from as far away as Germany, that the economic benefits have far outweighed any embarrassment.

“The poster is on more walls in northwestern Pennsylvania than Pamela Anderson Lee’s,” Edinboro sports information director Shawn Ahearn said.

It also has brought unaccustomed publicity to one of the most overlooked of college sports and a relatively small state university that takes on, and regularly beats, the big boys of college wrestling.

How well the Scots wrestle - in singlets, mind you, not skirts - would rate second glances even if there were no poster, no pleated skirts. Check the latest NCAA Division I rankings, and it looks like the Big Ten against the Little One: Oklahoma State, Iowa, Minnesota, Penn State, Illinois - and Edinboro.

The Fighting Scots (11-0) also are the uncrowned Rose Bowl champions of wrestling, having beaten Ohio State and Arizona State.

“We downplay the national ranking in the wrestling room, and it’s great to have undefeated and nationally ranked wrestlers, but you have to perform every night,” Baumgartner said. “So far, the guys have. They’re not afraid of working hard.”

Baumgartner has benefited from geography - and meteorology - while systematically building one of the nation’s best wrestling programs at a college that competes in Division II in every other sport.

Located 15 miles south of Erie, Pa., and 100 miles north of Pittsburgh, Edinboro is ideally located in a region populated by some of the nation’s best high school wrestlers. Not surprisingly, many are eager to be taught by Baumgartner, the nation’s best-known and most successful amateur wrestler.

“I don’t know if they (his gold medals) have opened some doors… . The guys don’t come here to say ‘Hi’ and hang out with Bruce,” Baumgartner said. “They come here to accomplish something.”

That, and to stay warm. Edinboro’s wicked weather, worsened by relentless lake-effect snow that regularly piles up at the rate of 8-12 inches, leaves few wintertime diversions in the community of 7,700. As a result, home matches often draw 2,000-3,000 spectators.

Unlike Iowa’s fabled Dan Gable, Baumgartner still cannot sign virtually any wrestler he chooses, but he and his assistants, including Lou Rosselli, another U.S. Olympian, recruit exceptionally well.

Three Scots, 190-pounder Jason Robison (28-0), 158-pounder Tony Robie (27-4) and 118-pounder Kevin Saniga (22-9), are nationally ranked and could challenge for NCAA titles. All are from western Pennsylvania, and all probably could have gone to bigger schools.

“Oklahoma State and Iowa obviously have an advantage over us - a down year for them is No. 2 or 3, a down year for us is No. 24 or 25,” Baumgartner said. “In a good year, we can be in the top five. It’s like any other sport - the team with the best talent usually wins. And we try to recruit winners.”