Inductees

Back in 1983, Bob Glasgow was right of college and looking for a high school wrestling job when he heard of two, including the head coaching role at Oak Grove High School.

In fact, Oak Grove was seeking its fifth head coach in 10 years but had enjoyed some success stories, with three state champions, including two the year before his arrival.

Glasgow, however, made it even bigger. He transformed the Oak Grove Wrestling Program into one of the state’s sports powerhouses, leading the Panthers to 12 of their first 17 state championships (a state record) over his 25 seasons, and it’s why the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame is proud to induct Glasgow with the Class of 2017. He is the first wrestling coach ever inducted.

Before retiring in 2009, Glasgow oversaw 68 of the program’s 86 individual state championships, including three of its four four-time state champs. Along the way, his teams were 245-39-2 in duals and, eventually, Glasgow reached the pinnacle of the sport with induction into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

In fact, the first team Glasgow ever coached – the 1983-1984 Panthers wrestling team – pulled off the unthinkable, winning the state championship. Ronny Thomas won state, giving Oak Grove 86.5 points to Seneca’s 85.

“Like any college kid, I just wanted a job,” Glasgow said, explaining that Lee’s Summit High School was seeking an assistant wrestling coach and he had applied there, too.

“Growing up in Blue Springs, I had a lot of connections,” Glasgow said. “And my coach, Gary Collins, was well-connected with high school and college coaches. So I had a lot of good recommendations and they really went to bat for me.”

Glasgow had placed second at the state tournament his senior year at Blue Springs High School, and then headed off to Northwest Missouri State University, becoming a three-time NCAA Division II qualifier.

He soon married his high school sweetheart, Tammie, who had grown up around the sport a brother who was a wrestler. The couple’s two sons, Kellen and Riley, eventually wrestled for Dad at Oak Grove.

In those early years at Oak Grove, Glasgow found all sorts of inspiration. In fact, after the team won state in 1984, he walked back out to the Hearnes Center floor in Columbia and found a towel.

On the towel was inscribed the words “Helias,” which was short for the Mike Jeffries-led Jefferson City Helias high school wrestling team that already was enjoying tons of success. Eventually, Helias would be the state’s first wrestling program inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.

Glasgow eventually pinned the towel to his bulletin board.

“That’s something I always kept in the forefront,” Glasgow said. “I told Mike, ‘We wanted to be like you guys.’”

Glasgow also was the head coach of USA Wrestling in 1997 (Tour De Monde in Great Britain), the 1991 USA National Freestyle team, the 1984-2004 Missouri National teams and a stint with Kansas City (Kan.) Community College. He also held various coaching roles at Oak Grove, has been part of numerous wrestling associations and, since retirement, is a referee.

He also was a six-time National Wrestling Coaches State Coach of the Year.

For Glasgow, his upgraded scheduling challenged Oak Grove for better days, and he received support from school principal Kim Schaburg and athletic director Bruce Thezan, who signed off on far-away trips.

“They wouldn’t block me if I wanted to take the team somewhere like Jefferson City Helias,” Glasgow said. “It obviously costs money to go somewhere, but they were always receptive.”

Glasgow also credits longtime assistant coach Clif Cromer, fellow coaches at Oak Grove as well as the Oak Grove community, which rallied behind the wrestling program by working closely with Glasgow to implement his philosophies.

Cromer had been an assistant since 1977, the second year of the program.

“We hit it off really well,” Glasgow said. “He probably was 11 years older than me and we coached freshman football together and wrestling together, so we got to know each other. And at first I taught in middle school and he was teaching in high school.”

In other words, Glasgow and Cromer double-teamed on recruiting the hallways in those early years. Fellow coaches in the school directed athletes to them, too, and vice versa.

“Our coaching staff, we were all pretty good friends,” Glasgow said. “We had football players that were wrestlers, and we had wrestlers who were football players.”

All in all, it’s what made for a tremendous program by a tremendous coach.