The following is a blog I wrote three years ago and updated it heading into the upcoming tournament. 

By Donald J. Brower

As we enter the holiday season, most people look towards spending time with their loved ones, celebrating whatever traditions they follow. For wrestling fans there is another reason to celebrate; Holiday Tournaments are here.

At various sites around the state, wrestlers will make the trek to try and make a name for themselves at the different meetings. Whether it is the Walter Woods Classic in Middletown South, The Mustang Classic at Brick Memorial or one of the new contests that seem to spring up yearly, the participants go against the best competition in a quest for the individual championship.

It truly is a quest as most will arrive at the site in the early morning hours, wrestle four to five bouts and attempt to fill the downtime just to be called champion.

One tournament that I had the honor of competing in was the John Goles Invitational Wrestling Tournament at Warren Hills. As an alumni of Warren Hills (Class of 95), I participated during my senior year. I was not a great high school wrestler by any means but all of the talk by the alumni heading into the day gave it a special feel. Even though I was a part of it, I didn't know who John Goles was or what he meant to high school wrestling.

That's when it hit me; do the wrestlers know the true story behind these precious tournaments and how they came to be?

The tournament honors the legend of John Goles, who won 268 matches as the Washington and Warren Hills Blue Streaks' head coach from 1944 to 1979, coaching for an astonishing 35 years. Washington High School became Warren Hills Regional in 1967. When most coaches are barely at a program for three years, Goles was there for three generations.

Most remarkably, Goles coached 39 individual state wrestling champions, 42 state runners up and produced an impressive coaching tree despite never having wrestled a match before taking over the job in 1944.

All that he knew about wrestling was from various books as well as trial and error. Today most teams will not schedule matches against top opponents outside of conference obligations, Goles would take his team to wrestle anywhere and anyone for experience. He built his team into one of the four powerhouse programs of the time along with Newton, Union and Roselle Park by wrestling various high schools in Pennsylvania, New York and Delaware but also competed against three college teams; Lafayette, Army and Navy.

In 1958, Goles started an annual tournament to help his wrestlers gain experience as unlike today, there were no feeder programs heading into high school wrestling. Originally called the Christmas Tournament, he started it one year after the Hunterdon Central tournament to try and promote wrestling in the area. It is the second-longest holiday wrestling tournament in the state of New Jersey and one of the longest in the country.

The school has always invited the best competition in the area with top teams such as Delaware Valley, Newton and North Hunterdon regularly participating.

The tournament was renamed in his honor in 1991 to acknowledge his contributions to the sport of wrestling. While one to never take credit for the success of his kids, Goles finally acknowledged his career before he passed away 11 years ago at the age of 92.

His daughter recounted a story from the National Wrestling Hall of Fame induction.

It was a few months before he died and was starting to show signs of dementia. Everyone told me I was going to have to give his acceptance speech. As we got there, we walked him into the ballroom. He was the third one to go up. Right before we were about to go up, he looked at me and said "I am going to give my speech". I told him that's not a good idea but he insisted on speaking. It was his day so I relented. I reminded him not to forget to thank everyone who picked him for the award. He looked at me, with a proud look on his face and said "I am not going to thank them for picking me, I earned it." He was always so quick to give credit to other people for the teams' success in the past, I think he knew he was nearing the end and finally accepted his place in wrestling. I will never forget that moment.

After that brief history lesson, now this year's champions and those going forward can truly understand the importance of what they are competing for. Hopefully all can pay homage to a man who paved the way for them to be able to do a sport they love.