Oklahoma State to Name New Wrestling Facility After John Smith

American wrestling’s GOAT will be immortalized in Stillwater.

Oklahoma State announced Saturday night that it will name the new Cowboy wrestling facility after John Smith — a long time Oklahoma State coach and two-time NCAA champion. The new facility will be on the north side of Gallagher-Iba Arena.

“It is nearly impossible to overstate what John Smith has meant to Cowboy Wrestling and the sport of wrestling around the world,” OSU AD Chad Weiberg said in OSU’s release. “There is not a more appropriate way to celebrate all he has done for Oklahoma State than to have his name on the building that future generations of OSU wrestlers will walk into every day.”

As a wrestler, Smith won six straight world championships from 1987 to 1992, which included gold medals at the 1988 and 1992 Olympics. He finished 100-5 in international competition and was 77-3 in domestic freestyle bouts.

He was a three-time Big Eight champ and a two-time NCAA champ, standing atop the national podium in 1987 and 1988. He went 152-8-2 as a Cowboy.

He was a two-time Oklahoma state champ as a high schooler at Del City, going 105-5 in his high school career.

So, if you’re keeping up, Smith competed 458 among high school, college and freestyle and won 436 of those matches.

But he didn’t stop there. Smith was the Cowboys’ coach for 33 years, winning five NCAA team titles and leading 33 individuals to national titles. He had 490 dual wins, coached 153 All-Americans, won 23 team conference titles, had 132 individual conference champs and two Hodge Trophy winners.

The Oklahoma A&M Board of Regents approved construction for the training center in December. The project is “not expected to exceed $16 million,” all of which will be from private donors. Here’s the mockup OSU released back in 2023 with the OSU Vision Plan:

The new facility will feature a 16,000-square-foot practice gym with six mats, a dedicated training area and grandstand seating. It’ll also feature a 2,000-square-feet space for the existing coaches’ locker room and includes the the transformation of Lot 4 into a landscaped plaza. It’s expected to be 62,000 square feet in total.

Back in December, it was said that construction will begin when the funds were fully committed.

“The sooner the better, of course, because it takes a while to build,” OSU President Jim Hess told PFB after a December Board of Regents meeting. “You’re probably looking at a 12-to-18-month build time — at least 18 months, probably. But the sooner we can secure all the private money, the $16 million, some of which has already been received. But we have pledges for all of it. As soon as the money’s in, they’ll start construction.

“Given our long-standing traditions in wrestling, it was important for us to make capital improvements to invest in wrestling. Our coach, as you all know, is phenomenal — I think the best wrestling coach in the United States, or anywhere. We wanted to support wrestling and the coaching effort. This will help do it.”