Summer 2006
UNO Alum

By Eric Olson

From the Summer 2006 UNO Alum

Need your plumbing fixed, some drywall hung or a car repair? No problem—it’s a snap for Les Sigman. Wrestling? You’d think Sigman is a natural at that, too. His four NCAA Division II national championships and status as UNO’s all-time wins leader should be proof enough. But make no mistake about it; nothing has come easily for the soft-spoken heavyweight.

This is a guy who failed to make the varsity wrestling team at Brown High School in Sturgis, S.D., until his junior year. He finished second in the state that season, then won the 189-pound championship as a senior.

He didn’t become a heavyweight until he showed up at UNO, then was an undersized one at 250 pounds. But time and again he whipped the giants who outweighed him by 35 pounds, overcoming five major surgeries along the way to become only the fourth four-time national champion in Division II history.

International Inclinations
The small-town boy’s next challenge undoubtedly will be his toughest. The 24-year-old Sigman wants to wrestle in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China.

He got his first taste of the bigger stage May 27-28 at the U.S. World team trials, for which he qualified by winning the Northern Plains Regional. Sigman was seeded fifth at the U.S. team trials and in his first match defeated No. 4 seed Michael Irving 3-2, 5-0. He lost in the semifinals, though, 1-0, 4-0 to NCAA Division I runner-up Steve Mocco of Oklahoma State. Sigman dislocated his shoulder twice in the match and had to pull out of the event.

The bum shoulder already was scheduled for surgery this summer—add that to three knee surgeries, one on his lower leg and another for a broken foot. After surgery he’ll continue his training while serving as a volunteer assistant coach at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln under Husker Coach Mark Manning, himself a former UNO star.

UNO coach Mike Denney has seen Sigman rise to the occasion numerous times the last five years, so he has confidence his prized pupil will do it again.

“You have to have a burning desire and wherewithal to be successful, and he has that desire,” Denney says. “These guys aren’t like football players. They’re not getting paid.”

In college, athletes are limited to 20 hours a week for training and competition. Wrestlers at the international level treat training as a full-time job, taking outside jobs that allow for flexible scheduling. “He wants to do this, and I think he can be very successful at it,” Denney says.

R.J. Nebe, a national champion 177-pounder for UNO in 1988, has been a mentor to Sigman the last few years. Sigman, who eclipsed Nebe’s UNO career win mark, has done handyman work on Nebe’s rental properties. Nebe calls Sigman a “jack of all trades.”

“You give him a job, and he doesn’t like to read the instructions,” Nebe says. “He figures out a way to finish it.”

So, like Denney, Nebe doesn’t count out Sigman in his quest to wrestle internationally. “He’s got a lot of things going against him,” Nebe says. “Probably the biggest thing is his size. He’s not a very big heavyweight. But international wrestling is down to six weight classes, and he would have to cut a ton of weight if he went down.”

Mark Rigatuso, a two-time national champion for UNO as a 205-pound heavyweight in 1982 and 1983, believes Sigman can make a smooth transition and that his size actually could work to his advantage.

College wrestling emphasizes control of an opponent. In freestyle, throws are encouraged and rewarded. Once a wrestler takes down his opponent, he has a matter of seconds to turn him onto his back. If he isn’t successful, both wrestlers return to a standing position and face off again.

Rigatuso says Sigman’s speed, strength and balance and knack for shooting at opponents’ legs will allow him to catch bigger opponents off-balance and score takedowns and, thus, acquire points quickly.

Sigman’s timing is good. Some of the elite heavyweights are in the twilights of their careers. Tolly Thompson, the top heavyweight in the United States, probably has only a couple years left. Sigman could be among the new crop of young heavyweights that will carry the U.S. banner for years.

“It just depends on if Les wants to put the time in,” Nebe says.

The answer to that is a resounding yes, Sigman says.


UNO’s Best
Sigman already has earned his place as UNO’s most decorated wrestler ever. He finished his career with wins in 179 of his 186 matches. That includes a 47-0 record this past season.

His last loss was in January 2005, when Bode Ogunwole of Harvard beat him 5-3 in a tournament at Northwestern University in Chicago. The wins kept coming after that, winding up with a 1-0 victory over the University of Nebraska at Kearney’s Tervel Dlagnev in the national championship match on March 11. Sigman joined the select club of four-time Division II champions, which also includes Tim Wright of Southern Edwardsville (1984-87), Dan Russell of Portland State (1988-91) and Cole Province of Central Oklahoma (2001-04).

“I don’t know if it’s hit me, as far as what I’ve accomplished,” Sigman says. “I was pretty disappointed with the [championship] match, but it was a relief, a load off my shoulders. I was feeling the pressure a little bit. I don’t feel I was at my best at nationals.”

But, as he always does, he got the job done.

Sigman’s father, Alen, says Les has always been determined to accomplish whatever he set out to do. Growing up on a farm 15 miles east of Sturgis, Les was counted on to work hard cutting hay, repairing fences and all the other chores associated with farm life.

Alen and Donna Sigman set high standards for their four children. Excellence was expected. What leisure time Les did have he spent on motorcycles. Think again, though, before jumping to the conclusion that everyone in Sturgis is naturally inclined to ride motorcycles because of the world-renowned Harley Davidson rally held there each summer.

Les liked motocross bikes, not Harleys; neither Alen nor Les thinks much of the annual Harley circus that comes to town every year.

“He was really immersed in motorcycle riding,” Alen says. “When he started going to college and got a little bigger, I encouraged him not to do much riding. We didn’t think it would be good for his wrestling if he got hurt on one of those things. Now he’s taken up golf.”

Not surprisingly, he’s driven to become as good as he possibly can at that sport, too. He’s played two years and already is shooting in the low 80s for 18 holes.
That’s just the way Sigman is. When Alen taught Les how to weld, the boy showed a knack for it. In fact, he worked as a welder last summer in Omaha. Nebe can vouch for Sigman’s skills at household repairs and renovation projects. Denney says it all goes back to Sigman’s background.

The discipline ingrained in Sigman as a youngster has served Sigman well as a wrestler. But even Alen expresses surprise at his son’s level of achievement. “He’s one in a million,” Alen says. “You don’t see people like that very often. He’s self-motivated and always striving for excellence.”

Alen Sigman won a state championship for Brown High in 1970, and he encouraged Les to try the sport as a second-grader. He showed talent at a young age. Still, in high school he couldn’t crack the varsity lineup for what at the time was a very average team.

“I took my lumps,” Sigman says. “I stuck with it. I didn’t make varsity until I was a junior, and that was one of the tougher times I went through as a wrestler. But that helped me to keep improving.”

Not once did Sigman complain about his high school coach’s decision to keep him on the junior varsity.

“I didn’t earn it,” the South Dakota straight-shooter says. “I didn’t have the mental side. I didn’t want it as badly as I should have. My junior year I matured a lot mentally. I had most of the technique. I just got more confidence in myself, and that helped tremendously.”

After winning a state title as a senior, he went on to finish second in the high school nationals. Suddenly, Sigman was a hot prospect. Division I programs such as Northern Iowa and Nebraska banged on his door.  But Sigman would only answer for UNO, which was the first school that tried to recruit him.


No place like UNO
“UNO did a great job recruiting me,” Sigman says. “The environment here is so welcoming for everybody. I felt comfortable here right away. Right from the start when I met Coach Denney, I couldn’t believe how great a guy he is. He’s never let me down my whole career here, never disappointed me one bit.”

Alen Sigman echoed his son, saying, “I don’t know if any other school would have taken care of him like they did in Omaha. They treat the athletes like people. They’re not just pieces of meat.”

Until the early 1990s, Division II champions were qualified to wrestle in the Division I national tournament. The last UNO wrestler to do so was Joe Wypiszenski in 1990. Wypiszenski finished eighth to earn All-America status.

That was long before Sigman joined the college ranks, and he says he doesn’t waste time wondering how he would have fared at the higher level. He wrestled enough D-I opponents to know he could have more than held his own.

There’s a UNO precedent for such, though, in two-time champ Rigatuso. Back when there was no 285-pound limit, Rigatuso successfully wrestled opponents twice his size (Tab Thacker, North Carolina State 1984 national champ, was 450 pounds), earning Division I All-America honors in 1982 (sixth place) and 1983 (fourth).

“The lighter guys did real well when I was at nationals,” Rigatuso says. “With Les, he’s remarkable in his ability to score, and he would have definitely been a Division I All-American if he would have been able to go to nationals like we did.”
Denney says he can’t resist wondering what if. “Ah, Les would have been right in the thick of it, boy,” Denney says.

“But this was the place for him. This was the right fit. He had great success here and had the opportunity to be a great leader on a great team. When he was a freshman, we were third in the nation, and now he’s been on three national championship teams. You can’t do that at every place.”

Sigman couldn’t agree more. “The opportunity I’ve had here,” he says, “is better than any other I could have had.”

More opportunity awaits.