* On the way to the 100th EIWA Championship  www.pennathletics.com/2004eiwas    It is safe to say that Richard DiBatista is one of the greatest wrestlers in the history of Penn wrestling. The Pennsylvania State Champion, National Prep Champion, three-time EIWA Champion and two-time NCAA Champion not only finished his collegiate career undefeated, he was unbeaten his entire wrestling career. That's right - 133 wins, 0 losses. It is a feat probably no wrestler today could match. He is one of only 13 grapplers to finish his collegiate career undefeated. The Ardmore, Pa., native has been honored with numerous awards throughout the years including being inducted into the Penn Athletics Hall of Fame, the EIWA Official's Hall of Fame and National Wrestling Hall of Fame as a distinguished member.      Recently I sat down with the wrestling legend as he recounted his days as a grappler at Penn.    Q: What was your first experience with Penn Wrestling?    A: "In 1936, W. Austin Bishop was officiating in the suburbs and he invited me to come out to one of the wrestling matches held at The Palestra. He had a freshman team, a junior varsity team and a varsity team. I remember once I was sitting there watching all the matches and Penn did not win a bout in all three matches. That is how bad they were. That is how Bishop started. When it was over Bishop came over to tell me how to get home again. I said to him, 'you didn't win a single bout' and he replied 'the day will come'."      "I was invited to the Grappler's Club banquet. William (Austin Bishop) started working on me pretty early. I have a picture from my freshman year of the freshman team and one of the varsity that year. There are nine guys on varsity and 23 on the freshman team. He was recruiting even way back then. "    Q: How did you end up at the University of Pennsylvania?    A: "I wasn't supposed to come to Penn, I was actually supposed to go to the Naval Academy."    "Back in those days, one of the physical tests you had to take was to grab a bunch of wires and align them - it was for depth perception. Well, I failed that test. The wrestling coach there said, 'don't worry about it; I am going to take care of this', but Coach Reed (Princeton) wanted me to go to Princeton and Bishop wanted me at Penn. All the scholarships I was offered were football scholarships, because they didn't have wrestling scholarships in those days. Bishop talked (George) Munger, the Penn football coach, into getting me on a scholarship here. They sent me to Franklin & Marshall (Prep) Academy to play football and wrestle."      "I went to Penn largely because I wanted to be near home. I would say Austin Bishop had a lot do with it as well more than Munger did. Munger was a father figure and that is why people came to play for him. Austin Bishop - he was a salesman."    Q: What is your most memorable wrestling match?    A: "When I wrestled Al Crawford of Appalachian State for the National Championship- I was just 20 years old and he was 29 as a freshman. He won a few AAU Championships but wanted to win the National Championship, so that was the only reason he was in school."    "Austin Bishop, my coach, had to officiate another match, so he sent Billy Sheridan, the Lehigh coach, over to help me. He had already decided I couldn't beat this guy. He said 'second at the National Championships as sophomore is quite an achievement.' Sheridan advised me to avoid Crawford and stay of my feet because of his strong takedowns that could put you on your back. I knew about it; I had seen him do it. "    "I didn't have a very good stalling technique like some people could do, so for the first three minutes I just circled around him and I got a warning and then another warning. The crowd at Lehigh was booing me. Cliff Keen (the legendary Michigan coach) was refereeing the match and he called me for stalling and put me down on the mat and gave me two stalling points against me. Now I haven't done anything yet except avoid him. I quickly escaped with a sit-turn-in move and now its 2-1. "    "I was still trying to avoid him. I was listening to Billy Sheridan - the dean of coaches at the time - and the people started booing again. I finally decided I am not going to get put down in this fight; I am going to wrestle. I am going to take this guy down. I took him down right away and after some time he got an escape. It was the first time Crawford was taken down in the tournament and all of a sudden the crowd was on my side. In the last period (which Crawford was not accustomed to wrestling), I rode him with a vice-like tight waist.  He was frustrated and starting calling me the most obscene names, using four letter words all the time and Keen let him get away with it. He called me everything because he couldn't get points. He should have been disqualified."     "After the match I was taking a shower in the locker room by myself. My trainer John Brennan is waiting for me in the locker room and in comes Crawford. Al said to Brennan 'where is that ****, he stalled and cheated, I want to prove who was the better man right here'. I waited in the shower; I wasn't going to go out there. Brennan stopped him - he said 'You gotta get through me first.' He pushed John aside to knock him down. Now John Brennan was a skinny man. He was tall, but wasn't much over 100 pounds.  So John hurled his body into his legs and sent him to the ground.  He got up, looked at me, looked at John, threw his hands up in the air and walked away."     Q: What is the difference between collegiate wrestling now and when you wrestled?    A: "The competition is great. I think there is a lot more skill today and are more holds and they know more about the sport today. That doesn't mean they can beat somebody who only has three things going for them -  a good takedown, a good escape and a good pinning combination. You don't need to be an expert on five or six. All you need to do is have something you can rely on and nobody can stop you."    Q: What did you rely on?    A: "I had a good takedown. I could takedown anybody. As long as they got close enough to me, I could whip an arm. It was a leg drive with arm combination that as a result, I always ended up lifting the guy up over my shoulders and a put a half nelson  on him and put him down. You had to be careful about the slam in those days. One year you had to have one knee on the ground and another time you could bring him down with force.      "I was also very quick, but was not a step and fetch it kind of guy. I also had a very good escape - a sit and turn in move that nobody could stop because it was too quick. Peter Kravitz wrote a story about me one time that said nobody could take me down for more than 15 seconds. I didn't really know because back then we didn't time ourselves."    Q: After you won your third EIWA tournament, the NCAA championships were cancelled due to the war and there was not another Olympics until 1948. Did you wrestle after your senior year?    A: "I never wrestled amateur again. But I did get into professional wrestling for a little while, but it was all predetermined. John Brennan was my 'promoter' and he had talked me into do it. I had in my contract written up that I was never to lose. Most of these guys didn't know how to wrestle; it was just for show. I wrestled 12 matches in New England, New York and Philadelphia but that was about it. I quit because I got married and they wanted me to travel in my car from city to city wrestling - but no wives were allowed."    DiBatista returned to Lower Merion High School to teach physical education. He also coached wrestling at the school for several years before taking the helm at Drexel where he coached for 10 seasons. He officiated in high school and collegiate competition for over 30 years. He is held in such high regard, that even after retirement he is often called out of the stands to help the officials interpret a rule.