Dick Rutt ’49
Career Record: 25-1, 2x D11 Champ, 2x State Medalist, State Champ
1949 (Sr.): District Champ, State Champ (14-0)
1948 (Jr.): District Champ, State Semifinals (11-1)
The first Easton state champion was the start of the first two seasons of Easton wrestling.
Gust Zarnas founded the Easton wrestling program for the 1947-48 season, just in time for Dick Rutt’s junior season. Rutt recorded the first pin in Easton wrestling history when he stuck Charles Marx (Northampton) one minute and thirty five seconds into the second bout of the first dual at Easton, a 40-5 win over the Konkrete Kids. That jump started an 8-0 regular season for Rutt, including a pair of wins against Phillipsburg. He entered Easton’s first District 11 tournament as the top seed. He shut out Bill Szakos (Bethlehem) in the D11 semifinals, then became Easton’s first D11 champion by pinning Marx in the second period. That earned Rutt a berth in the state tournament as one of four Easton qualifiers. In his first round match at states, Rutt shut out future Erie Tech coach and NWCA Hall of Famer Tom Carr (Wilkes-Barre Meyers), 7-0. In the quarterfinals, he pinned Harry Emmett (Greenville) in under a minute. He finally met his match in semifinals, where he and Jim Bencievengo (Farrell) were deadlocked at the end of regulation and wrestled an extra overtime period for the state finals berth. When the extra period went scoreless, Bencievengo was awarded the victory by referee’s decision, ending Rutt’s season a match short of the finals.
Rutt came back as a senior at 103 and continued to dominate the Easton schedule. He pinned his way through the regular season, earning a bye to the D11 finals. There, he pinned Harold Lynch (Bethlehem) in 34 seconds to continue the parade of champions for Easton, who champs in nine of the eleven weight classes. At the state tournament, after a first round bye, Rutt pinned Bob Stroup (Erie Academy) in 31 seconds to make his second straight semifinals. In the semis, he clashed with future NCAA qualifier Don Stubblebine (Plymouth) and scored the bout’s lone takedown for a 3-1 win to become Easton’s first state finalist. That evening, he faced Doug Cassell (Hershey), who won a team national championship as Penn State’s 118 pounder in 1953. Rutt hammered Cassell, running up an 11-1 score to cruise to the first state title in Easton history.
After Easton, Rutt found the wrestling program at St. Anthony’s Youth Center, which was the main development program and lifeblood of the Easton wrestling program for years.
History of Easton Wrestling 