‘He just was all in for the kids’: Tough but fair, wrestling legend Ed Ewoldt dies

Where he came from in Wall Lake, Iowa, they didn’t even have high school wrestling.

Ed Ewoldt certainly made up for that.

Acknowledged as Illinois’ high school wrestling historian after a hall of fame career as a coach, state and national team leader, tournament coordinator and all-around ambassador, Ewoldt, 97, died Dec. 14 of complications from a fall in Wheaton, where he had lived since taking a teaching and coaching position there in 1959.

A Navy man between attending high school and Iowa Teacher’s College (now the University of Northern Iowa), his flat-top haircut and no-guff demeanor came to symbolize discipline and guidance for athletes and students at Wheaton Community High School, then at Wheaton Central until his retirement in 1988.

“He was as tough as they come,” said retired Glendale Heights police officer Steve Ewoldt of Wheaton, who with his brother, Eric, is one of Ed Ewoldt’s surviving children.

Ed Ewoldt had to be tough, for he was tragically tested. In his lifetime he saw the deaths of Nancy, his wife of 45 years; his oldest child, Karen; and his oldest son, Kurt.

His reputation in wrestling was unimpeachable. He wasn’t just a grand marshal at the 1984 state finals, at one point Ewoldt chaired the grand marshal committee.

Before shifting to athletic director at Wheaton Central in 1973, Ewoldt’s Tigers went 125-50 in duals, placed second in state in 1966, and they won several conference titles in the years before the DuPage Valley Conference, which Ewoldt helped form.

He led delegations of Illinois wrestlers to international competitions in New York, Germany and China, and domestically to Junior Nationals from 1979-92.

A member of the Illinois Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association Hall of Fame — an association he also helped form — Ewoldt was Wrestling USA Magazine’s 1991 man of the year and earned a lifetime achievement award by the Illinois chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2001.

Though Ewoldt is in Wheaton Warrenville South’s Athletic Hall of Fame, and the school’s wrestling gym plus an annual tournament are named after him, he influenced many sports. If a coaching vacancy emerged in softball, for example, he filled it.

“He just was all in for the kids, and the athletes,” Steve Ewoldt said.

In later years Ed Ewoldt lost most of his sight and hearing and couldn’t get around well, but his mind and memory stayed sharp. He remained a sponge for sports results down to the junior high level.

Visiting his father in the hospital after his fall, Steve Ewoldt said he’d bumped into a Tigers wrestler from the 1960s. Ever the authority, Ed Ewoldt rattled off data about the wrestler as if it were yesterday.

Ewoldt was a disciplinarian, but to student-athletes’ benefit. A major reclamation project was Al Sears, a future heavyweight who as a kid threw his weight around, a grade-school bully others would cross the street to avoid.

“I wasn’t always a great guy,” Sears said. “My parents tried and Ed kind of stepped in.”

Sears’ father, Charles, introduced him to Ewoldt’s Wheaton Park District wrestling program, where Ewoldt sanded off some rough edges “with the patience of a saint,” Sears said. In high school Tigers football coach John Thorne and Ewoldt’s wrestling successor, John Fuller, also imparted lessons.

It turned out that Sears was a great guy who needed some tough love.

Ewoldt introduced Sears — by then a two-time DVC champ and 1981 third-place state heavyweight — to Larry Kristoff, the former Olympian who coached at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville.

Now in several halls of fame himself, Sears developed into an All-American who set the NCAA falls record with 110.

Using referrals by his mentors to get into education, Sears went on to teach and coach at Belleville West, where before his retirement Sears led 15 state place-winners, including a champion.

“My experience with Ed was the most important times of my life. He would give me the best advice,” said Sears, who turned the tables by introducing his mentor at Ewoldt’s 1992 induction into the National Junior College Hall of Fame.

“Sometimes he didn’t talk unless it meant something, so you knew if he said something it was time to listen. Just a wonderful person, and always kind.”

Visitation for Ed Ewoldt will be held at Hultgren Funeral Home in Wheaton from 1 p.m.-5 p.m. Sunday.

doberhelman@dailyherald.com