Tobe Zweygardt at his home in Prairie City on Thursday, April 14, 2022. Zweygardt will be inducted into the Oregon chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in October.

These days, 82 year old Tobe Zweygardt operates a ranch outside Prairie City.

Before getting into ranching, however, Zweygardt was a fixture on the wrestling scene, in Oregon, nationally and internationally. His accomplishments on the mat and his lifetime of service to the wrestling community have led to his selection for inclusion in the Oregon chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

Zwygerdt started wrestling in the small town of St. Francis, Kansas, when he was in the sixth grade. Back in those days, a children’s wrestling program didn’t exist, so Zweygardt didn’t get his start in the sport until he was in middle school. The middle school and high school wrestling programs in the area were run by Warren Boring a former Long Beach State wrestling coach and eventual California Wrestling Hall of Fame inductee. Zweygardt was coached in high school by Maynard Skinner.

When Zweygardt was a senior, Skinner departed the St. Francis wrestling program and was replaced by coach Frank Brown. Zwygerdt would go on to win a Kansas state wrestling championship under Brown.

Following his high school wrestling career, Zweygardt headed out West to wrestle for Oregon State University in 1958. Oregon State was coached by eventual Hall of Fame wrestler and coach Dale Thomas at the time. Zweygardt says the presence of Thomas at Oregon State was one of two reasons he sought to wrestle for the program.

“I loved hunting and fishing and Thomas was at Oregon State, so I came out. It was a good move on my part.”

Under the coaching of Thomas, Zweygardt would go on to be the Pacific Coast Intercollegiate runner-up in 1960 and the Pacific Coast Intercollegiate champion in 1961 and 1962.

The year 1962 would also see Zweygardt become an alternate on the USA world championship wrestling squad in Greco-Roman wrestling as well as coaching the South African Springbok Greco-Roman team at those same world championships. The spot on the Greco-Roman world championship team was even more special than it normally would be because Zweygardt had no exposure to Greco-Roman wrestling before his time in college.

His foray into coaching in 1962 came about because the South African team lacked a coach at the world championships. Zweygardt was suggested as a potential coach and accepted the responsibility. After coaching the South African team in 1962, Zweygardt joined the Peace Corps and coached for the Federation of Youth and Sport in the Ivory Coast and Senegal in West Africa.

A return to Oregon State as an assistant coach under Thomas following his time with the Peace Corps in 1965 was Zweygardt’s next coaching gig. After the season at Oregon State, Zweygardt transitioned to head wrestling and track coach at Hedrick Junior High School in Medford for the 1966 and 1967 seasons.

After moving to Grant County in 1971, Zweygardt would work on various ranches throughout the county before starting the wrestling program at Prairie City High School while simultaneously directing the youth wrestling program in 1978.

Zweygardt’s final act as a head coach saw him travel back to Africa in 1982 with the Collegiate Cultural Exchange tour in South Africa.

Apartheid still held sway in South Africa at the time, but Zweygardt says Thomas, the Oregon State wrestling coach, saw sport as a way to break down the country’s system of racial oppression. The result was a team composed of college-aged wrestlers from around the Pacific Northwest traveling to South Africa to compete against club teams throughout the country.

Zweygardt found other ways to stay connected to the sport as well. He refereed on a regular basis after his own competitive wrestling days were done. He reffed in the Oregon School Activities Association wrestling championships and Pacific Coast Intercollegiate Championships before three consecutive years as a referee in the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships. In 1980, Zweygardt was the co-floor director of the NCAA Division I championship tournament held in Corvallis.

Zweygardt was just as active in his community as he was around the mat, spending four years on the Prairie City School Board, serving as president of both the Lions Club in Prairie City and the Grant County Ranch and Rodeo Museum. Zweygardt was also voted the Grant County Tree Farmer of the Year in 1990 and the Grant County Stock Grower of the Year in 2007.

Zweygardt will be inducted into the Oregon State Wrestling Hall of Fame in a banquet at the Embassy Suites in Portland this October.

Zweygardt says he never thought he’d be inducted into the Oregon Wrestling Hall of Fame and credits his childhood community for giving him a good start in the sport. “I grew up in western Kansas, and fortunately it was a wrestling community.”

His size growing up had a lot to do with why Zweygardt chose wrestling over other sports early on. “Being so small, basketball was out of the question. I played football, but I wasn’t ever very big. I weighed 145 pounds my senior year. I didn’t think I would succeed much in the collegiate level in football, so wrestling was a good option.”

“I’m honored and humbled by the selection into the Hall of Fame. There is a saying, ‘Humble thyself in all things, for he who knows himself is a rich man.’ Being selected to join this group, I’m humbled and I’m a rich man,” Zweygardt said.

The original version of the story incorrectly gave the wrong name of Tobe Zweygardt’s youth wrestling coach. The error has been corrected.