Terry Barth was hired on to be UW Oshkosh’s men’s wrestling program head coach in 1979, and eventually would become the most successful head coach in the program’s history.
Barth did it by coaching his Titans to 10 All-America performances and 17 conference titles during his 13 years as head coach.
“I was fortunate to have a career that I can say I love from the beginning to end,” Barth said. “The opportunity to teach and coach and mentor students and student athletes was my passion. (They were) the best people in the world.”
Rick Gruber was Barth’s top-performing wrestler from his period as coach. Gruber, a 1994 UWO Hall of Fame inductee, earned four All-America honors and won four Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference titles (WIAC) in his four-year career.
Barth also coached another current UWO Athletics Hall of Fame member, Duane Fischer, a 2017 inductee, who won three WIAC titles in his time at Oshkosh.
When it comes to team competition, only one coach can say they’ve led the program to a WIAC title. In 1982, Barth led the Titans to a WIAC team title and a sixth-place finish in the NCAA Division III tournament.
That wasn’t the first time the team had placed nationally, though. In his first year coaching the program, with Barth at the helm, the team placed 13th at the 1979 National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) championship.
“The best reward for me is staying in touch with many of them (athletes) and hearing about their stories about their lives and careers,” Barth said.
In the 1982 season, UWO rallied itself to a 7-1 dual record, while scoring 74.25 points at the WIAC championship, and also scored 46 points to get themselves to sixth place nationally. Gruber, Rich Tomaszewski and Sean McCarthy each won conference titles and earned All-America honors in the 1982 season.
During his wrestling coaching career, Barth also served as an assistant football and baseball coach from 1978-88 and from 1979-81, respectively. He also directed the UWO Intramural Sports and Recreation department from 1990 until his retirement in 2007.
