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Ranking the Top Five Wisconsin Badgers Wrestling Coaches All-Time

Who is the Wisconsin Badgers wrestling GOAT?

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3 weeks ago

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Wisconsin Badgers wrestling news

There have been sixteen Wisconsin Badgers wrestling head coaches in program history dating back to 1910 and what good is an off-season if you don’t arbitrarily rank the top five?

Before we do that – let’s take a look at the three categories I find to be the most important.

Wisconsin Badgers All-Time Win Percentage

No.1 – Russ Hellickson – .753

No.2 – Duane Kleven – .721

No.3 – Andy Rein – .648

No.4 – Chris Bono – .588

No.5 – Barry Davis – .561

Note: coaches with less than 10 total duals were excluded.

Wisconsin Badgers All-Americans Per Year

No.1 – Russ Hellickson – 2.25

No.2T – Chris Bono – 2.17

No.2T – Duane Kleven – 2.17

No.4 – Andy Rein – 2.00

No.5 – Barry Davis – 1.76

Note: coaches with less than 10 total duals were excluded.

Wisconsin Badgers Big Ten Champions Per Year

No.1 – Duane Kleven – 1.33

No.2 – Andy Rein – 1.00

No.3 – Barry Davis – 0.64

No.4 – Russ Hellickson – 0.50

No.5 – Chris Bono – 0.33

Note: coaches with less than 10 total duals were excluded.

Ranking Wisconsin Badgers Wrestling Coaches of All-Time

For me – I am always big on the postseason. Regular season results are an important barometer for program sustainability and tracking growth.

What is done in the postseason is where legacies are cemented and legends are remembered.

No.1 – Duane Kleven (1970-1982)

Serving the Wisconsin Badgers for over a decade, Duane Kleven produced at a very high level in multiple levels of wrestling. Coach Kleven saw his wrestlers win nine NCAA National Champions; Rich Lawinger (1974), Jack Reinwand (1976), Lee Kemp (1976, 1977, 1978), Pat Christenson (1976),  Jim Haines (1977), Ron Jeidy (1978), Andy Rein (1980).

In addition to nine NCAA championships, Coach Kleven coached 25 All-Americans, and his teams finished ranked in the top seven nationally six of twelve years second highest win percentage (.727) at Wisconsin.

That’s not all – prior to his Wisconsin dominance, Coach Kleven was the head man for Washington Park High School (Racine) and led them to WIAA State Championships in 1967 and 1969.

If nine individual NCAA Championships in twelve seasons doesn’t make you No.1 – then what does!

No.2 – Barry Davis (1993-2018)

After an interim season in 1993-1994, Barry Davis took over the Wisconsin Badgers program and led the Badgers for two and a half decades with tremendous postseason results. Understandably, the .561 overall win percentage (fifth) is not as high as others on this list but Davis’s postseason success in undeniable.

Davis coached his wrestlers to four individual NCAA National Championships; Jeff Walter (1996), Donny Pritzlaff (2000, 2001), and Andrew Howe (2010) to their titles. Davis was in the corner for 16 Wisconsin Badgers Big Ten Championship victories and saw his wrestlers achieve 44 All-American honors over his tenure.

When the lights got the brightest – Barry Davis and his Wisconsin Badgers showed up!

No.3 Chris Bono (2018-present)

The current head coach of the Wisconsin Badgers already ranks No.3 for me heading into his seventh season as the leader of the wrestling program. Already nestled in the top five all-time for win percentage (fourth), All-Americans per year (tied for second), and Big Ten Champions per year (fifth) – Chris Bono is still looking to ascend.

In this iteration of collegiate sports – Chris Bono and his staff are more than capable of navigating the current landscape and building upon their successful program. Wrestling doesn’t generate the most NIL but Bono has been able to show the development of All-Americans and competing on the worlds stage. Some things he can give wrestlers are things money cannot buy.

I understand this may seem like a controversial selection, and maybe I’m a little too “prisoner of the moment” given the great coaches that follow, but hear me out. Following the win percentage, All-Americans produced and Big Ten Champions produced above – if you extrapolate it out and prorate Coach Bono’s numbers over the same twenty-five year sample size that Barry Davis had I think we would see similar results.

For example: a 25-year sample with zero growth would have Bono at 208 wins and 146 losses (.588 win %). Those 208 wins would be good for second in program history. These prorated numbers would give Bono eight Big Ten Champions (T-4 all-time), and a Wisconsin program best – 54 All-American honors coached.

The thing about wrestling is they don’t do it on paper – wrestlers have to go out and do it. The one thing that is/would be hard to measure against Barry Davis is the NCAA titles. Coach Davis helped guide three wrestlers to NCAA National tiles.

Chris Bono coached Seth Gross to an NCAA in 2018 with South Dakota State so I have the utmost confidence that he can do the same at Wisconsin. Within just the last theee seasons we have seen Eric Barnett finish third in 2024, Austin Gomez finish fourth in 2022, and Dean Hamiti finish sixth in 2022 and 2023.

No.4 – Russ Hellickson (1982-1986)

In only four seasons Russ Hellickson had a .753 win percentage but coached nine All-Americans, and two Big Ten Champions. Coach Hellickson’s time in Madison was short as he departed for the Ohio State Buckeyes head coaching job in 1986 but had he stayed in Madison – who knows the kind of teams he could have had.

In the the current iteration of college sports – his Wisconsin win percentage of  .753 will likely never be broken. It’s worth noting that after Coach Hellickson left the Badgers, he went on to a Hall of Fame career with the Buckeyes.

While this Hall of Fame coach certainly has a case with his overall record — I only took into account time at Wisconsin for the all-time Wisconsin head coaches.

No.5 George Martin (1935-1942 and 1945-1970)

This one was a tough one for me. With Andy Rein ranking in the top five of all three categories it seems odd to not include him here. However, I gave the nod to Coach George Martin who coached the Wisconsin Badgers over two separate stints that totaled an astonishing 32 seasons.

Coach Martin had the three year gap in coaching and was due to a wartime interruption in which Naval Officer George Martin earned a Bronze star for his heroism. Martin returned to lead the badgers until his death in 1970. In those 32 years, Martin amassed 183 wins – the second most all-time and only trailing Barry Davis’s 234.

George Martin made a significant impact not only on the Wisconsin Badgers but wrestling as a whole. The Wisconsin Wrestling Coaches Association named their Hall of Fame the “George Martin Hall of Fame” and have annual inductions.

Honorable Mention

Andy Rein led the Wisconsin Badgers from 1986-1993 and had remarkable success for the program. In addition to winning a NCAA National Championship as a wrestler under Duane Kleven – Coach Rein helped produce seven Big Ten Champions and 14 All-Americans in his stint with the Badgers and his .648 win percentage is good for third all-time for the Wisconsin Badgers wrestling program.

Please connect with and tell me where I was right and where I got it wrong. Who got snubbed?

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Ryan Eilers covers the Wisconsin Badgers football and wrestling programs for BadgerNotes.com and has had his work published on Bleacher Report. He also makes up 1/4 of the BadgerNotes After Dark podcast crew.

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