Kevin Evans

2008 Iowa Wrestling Hall of Fame Inductee

Any fan who measures their interest in wrestling by decades rather than years knows firsthand how much the sport has changed.

Kevin Evans, only the second non-wrestler to be inducted into the Iowa Wrestling Hall of Fame, took his love of the sport a few giant steps further by reporting on its evolution for over four decades at the Waterloo Courier.

“I got interested in wrestling when I was in ninth grade,” Evans recalls. “Gable was so dominant… he was the main reason I got interested in wrestling.” Evans also noted that Bob Siddens was his counselor at West High in Waterloo.

His involvement in wrestling is evident, as Evans proudly notes he never missed a state wrestling tournament from 1964 to 2006. From 1966 through 2006, he worked at the tournaments writing articles for the Waterloo Courier, the last 16 years as Sports Editor. “I never missed a single session during those years and wrote close to 1,000 stories during that time,” he added.

The articles he wrote about legendary Iowa coaches read like a who’s who of wrestling history and include: Chuck Patton, Dave McCuskey, Gary Kurdelmeier, Dan Gable, Chris Flanagan, Bob Siddens, Keith Young, Dave Natvig, Bob Darrah, Dan Mashek, Brad Smith, Jim Miller, Harold Nichols, Jim Gibbons, Bobby Douglas, Jim Zalesky, Don Briggs, Kaye Young, Brad Penrith, Champ Gable, Ben Peterson, Chris Campbell, Randy Lewis, Ed Banach, Lou Banach, Kevin Jackson, Terry Brands, and Tom Brands.

The changes he has seen in the sport are, for the most part, positive. “There is a lot more action now than in the past. It’s more fan-friendly. Years ago, a guy could grab an ankle (from the top position) and hold on for a week without getting called for it,” Evans noted. He also said that weighing in just before wrestling has eliminated drastic weight cutting and made matches more unpredictable.

Sports specialization is perhaps one change Evans isn’t fond of. “I’m not a fan of it, but it’s almost required now. I like the wide exposure other sports offer. What can be learned from one sport can help you in wrestling, but good wrestling almost requires 12 months, seven days a week anymore.”

Evans also noted he ran the first statewide high school team wrestling ratings in the late 1960s and 1970s. Unlike today, when technology makes things fairly easy, he sent four paper ballots to every wrestling school in the state and tabulated the results four times a year.

Kevin Evans was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2008 along with Mark Schwab, Scott Morningstar, and Greg Randall.