What Makes GIA Special - The Night the Lights Went Out - Oklahoma State University Athletics

In the first feature of a new series dedicated to reliving the best moments in the history of Gallagher-Iba Arena, former Cowboy wrestler Daryl Monasmith, longtime wrestling reporter J. Carl Guymon and OSU's wrestling radio broadcaster Rex Holt tell the story of the 1978 Big Eight Wrestling Championships from their perspectives.

Daryl Monasmith: "Iowa State was the returning national champion team from the year before. They had won and beat us in the Big Eight and pretty sure they beat us in every way the year before. That year, which would've been my senior year we had the Big Eight tournament in Stillwater we thought we had a pretty good team. We thought we could win, but Iowa State was the returning national champions."

"Coming into the tournament, Frank Santana was probably the most heavily favored besides our heavyweight Jimmy Jackson who was a three-time national champion. Jimmy didn't really have that much of a tournament because nobody was challenging him in the Big Eight, but Frank wasn't supposed to be challenged either. He was probably a shoo-in to win. He had won two Big Eight championships before, so no one really gave me a chance against him. I had wrestled him four times before and he beat me pretty convincingly every time. I gave him a good match in all but the first match when I hurt my back. He was definitely a very good wrestler who was strong, determined and he didn't like to take a back seat. So you knew you had your work cut out for you when you wrestled Frank."

"As the tournament unfolded Iowa State and Oklahoma State both took command of the tournament. Oklahoma had a good team, but they just weren't in the same category that year as Iowa State and Oklahoma State."

I think Gallagher Hall held 6,500 people officially with the seats and bleachers. I heard estimates but they really didn't know because so many people came in, that there was over 9,000 people that got into Gallagher Hall that night. Bob Dellinger, who was the announcer for the tournament, told me after it was all over that he was approached by the fire marshal who said 'We have to get people out of here. This is too full. If something were to happen, we'd never get anyone out it would be a riot.' Dellinger knew some people had been waiting for three hours sitting and waiting once they opened the doors. 'Who are you going to tell to leave? You're going to have a riot telling them to leave.' So (the fire marshal) prayed for the best and walked away… It was so packed there was not even room to walk around. If you went out to the mat, you had to shove people aside to get on the mat. It was full clear up to the mat side of people, so it was really jampacked."

"Tom Hazell, who was an assistant coach for us, told me when Dave (Schultz) got beat that Tommy Chesbro turned to him and said, 'Well we just lost the Big Eight.' Hazell said he responded, 'Maybe Mono could upset Santana. That would put us up again', and Chesbro said, 'Like I said, we just lost the Big Eight.' I don't think anybody gave me a chance to beat Santana. In the end I think the only people who thought I could beat him were my parents, who were there for the first time watching me and Howard Aufleger's girlfriend who was just sure that I was going to win. I think they were the only three people in the world who thought I was going to beat Santana."

J. Carl Guymon: "Iowa State was the favorite and Frank Santana was their national champion. All he had to do was win, which he was heavily favored to do so, and they would clinch the Big Eight title."

Rex Holt :"Everybody in the arena knew and I think the PA announcer said in the arena that OSU had to win both matches to beat Iowa State."

"You're going to have to upset a national champion to win when your backs are up against the wall. We all knew Jimmy Jackson was going to win. We just had to figure out some way for Monasmith to win."

JG: "Now, Monasmith was a good wrestler. He was an All-American. I want to say he finished sixth in 1976 and fourth that year in 1978."

DM: "I told myself you are going to have to wrestle the best match of your entire life. If you win that's great, but don't lose not trying your very best. If he hits you hard, you hit him back harder. If he tried something, you fight it tooth and nail; do whatever you can do to get off the mat. Just wrestle your best."

"I come upstairs to just tons of people. I had to scoot them aside to get to the mat. When Frank came out I heard a couple people like 'Oh, I hope he doesn't hurt Mono.' We went out and started wrestling. I can't explain how but things started to fall into place."

RH: "Daryl Monasmith came out and wrestled a tactically superior match. He picked his spots and as he held the lead, the crowd started to get deafening."

JG: "Monasmith hit what I would've called a whip-over, just an over-under whip-over that put him on his back for five points and that was the whole match, basically."

DM: "I ended up beating him I think 7-3 or 7-4, but the last period, and honestly, I've never had this happen before - I could not hear anything except for yelling and screaming. By the last minute of the match our feet were bouncing off the floor. You couldn't even hardly walk. You felt like if you stood there you would vibrate across the mat. It was that type of noise level, kind of unbelievable. When I did beat him, it was so loud it was quiet. It was so loud you couldn't hear."

"As far as the match went there's not much I can say other than I did take advantage of a couple of little mistakes that Frank made and what I told myself in the wrestling room that if he hits you hard, you hit him back harder. I just never quit. When he was really trying to score on me, I stayed with it and everything turned out the way I hoped it would. I'm glad I could finish out my career at Oklahoma State on that high note."

JG: "Now, suddenly the tournament wasn't over and Jimmy Jackson, of course, was the favorite at heavyweight to win his third NCAA title that year. He was wrestling an undersized guy, Tom Waldon, who was a smaller heavyweight that I don't think weighed more than 210 or 215 pounds. The crowd went nuts. It just went nuts.

RH: "The excitement and noise just built. It kept going up and up, just a constant roar. As soon as Monasmith won it got louder and then Jimmy Jackson runs out there, gets in the middle of the mat ready to go. Everyone, including the Iowa State heavyweight, knew what was coming."

DM: "I believe we were a quarter of a point either ahead or behind when Jimmy took the mat, so if Jimmy loses, we lost and if Jimmy won, then we won the tournament."

"Jimmy went out there to wrestle, but they had to stop because everybody was still yelling and celebrating so much that they had Jimmy come over and sit down. Once things settled down a little bit… Jimmy went after him like a wild animal and pinned him in 22 seconds. Then the crowd went wild again because that won it for us."

RH: "Glass was falling and nobody was really sure where it was coming from. Later they figured out it was so loud that the lightbulbs had broken from all the noise."

JG: "It was just a wild scene. Fans were just going crazy… To me that is still the single, defining moment of all the matches that I've seen in Gallagher."

DM: "After that the next two or three days in classes I'd come in and in a couple of them I got standing ovations. That's stuff you can't buy. Your fellow college students respected you and professors all they talked about was the wrestling match. It just tickled me, I thought it was great."

RH: "I've been there for a lot of events in that building, but I don't know that it's ever been louder than that particular night."

Monasmith Big 8 Champ 1978

Daryl Monasmith stands atop the podium after winning the Big 8 Conference championship.

Oklahoma State University Athletics

What Makes GIA Special - The Night the Lights Went Out

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