A Wrestling Powerhouse......

                                  Luxemburg High School 1939 Wrestling Team

Luxemburg-Casco high school is known throughout Wisconsin for its wrestling teams. What few know is that it all began because of the curiosity of young George Gregor, from the Town of Lincoln, who went on to become Luxemburg’s high school principal.

As a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1920, Gregor happened to peak in an open doorway of the old red armory on Madison’s Lake Mendota. What he saw was Coach George Hitchcock and the UW wrestling team. Hitchcock invited Gregor to don a suit and work out. Gregor continued the work-outs and won an all university tournament that same year. As a freshman he was ineligible for intercollegiate competitions.

Gregor joined the Luxemburg faculty four years later, in 1924, as an ag teacher who taught biology, physics, general science and geometry. He also started the wrestling team with boys named Gashe, Kollross, Boness and Nellis. Mats were about the only expense, but Gregor felt they need not be pretentious. After all his boys wrestled at home in the hay or on turf

While in the early days few schools had teams, Luxemburg had two matches a year with Green Bay East and West and Sevastopol, another of today’s well-known programs. By the 1940’s Neenah had a team though after Luxemburg trounced them 27 – 6, Neenah never asked for another match.

During Gregor’s days at Madison, the wrestlers went 12 minutes straight with two additional three minute periods. In his first years at Luxemburg, matches were a straight seven minutes.

Luxemburg was one of the first schools in this part of the state to offer wrestling. It’s been a successful part of the athletic program ever since.

Picture identification: Top: George Gregor, 1939 State Heavyweight Champion Lee Hoppe, former Green Bay mayor Sam Halloin, Gaylord Ropson. Seated, Irvin Jonet, Francis Seidl, Elmer Frisque, Nelson Frisque and Marvin Sell. The photo is believed to be from Algoma Record Herald.