The Last Auburn Wrestler

Jamie Milkovich has file cabinets, seven of them, filled to the brim with information—programs, articles, records—dating as far back as 1938, the beginning of competitive wrestling at Maple Heights High School in Cleveland, Ohio.

In his mind there’s far more stored. Last August Milkovich retired after 43 years as Maple Heights’ wrestling coach, but he can still recall exact details—who pinned who, in what round—from his own days as a wrestler there.

“Growing up, my number one goal was to be a wrestling coach,” said Milkovich from his home in Cleveland, Ohio. “It sounds odd to people today—I didn’t want to be President. I didn’t want to make the Senate. I wanted to be a wrestling coach.”

For the first time in 43 years, he has time to reflect. But there are files he hasn’t opened in as many years. They relate the rise—and sudden fall—of the storied Auburn Wrestling Team.

Wrestling is the Milkovich family profession. In their working-class Cleveland neighborhood, wrestling was their hardscrabble path to success. All of his uncles were wrestling coaches, and in 1977, his cousin Tom Milkovich was named coach of the Auburn program. He and Jamie came to the Plains together.

Once storied, Auburn’s wrestling program had gone dormant. From 1946 to 1973, legendary coach Arnold “Swede” Umbach coached four national champions and 127 conference champions. He brought the 1971 NCAA Wrestling Championship to Auburn, the first time it was held in the Deep South.

But times had changed, and to win the support of the university, the Milkoviches had to sell wrestling. They moved matches to Saturday nights and invited the cheerleaders. They used dramatic overhead lighting. Jamie first thought of challenging the fraternities, and with a mat strapped to the roof of Tom’s VW Bus, they drove around campus looking for anyone to grapple with.

In Milkovich’s first year, Auburn went from last in the SEC to third. Next year they were second, and in his third year they won the SEC. The peak came on February 22, 1980 in a home match with top-ranked Oklahoma. Nearly 4,500 spectators filled up Memorial Coliseum. Round-for-round they competed to a near draw. In a dramatic finish, Auburn defeated Oklahoma and ascended to 9th in the nation—the highest-ever for an SEC team.

By June 1981, it was all over. Title IX, which mandated gender equality in sports, was seen as an impediment by athletic departments to the success of wrestling. One by one, programs began to close. With a personal guarantee from the athletic director that Auburn would continue, Tom turned down a head coaching job from the University of Michigan. Then the unthinkable happened.

“Auburn University has dropped wrestling as a varsity sport,” The Olean Times-Herald wrote on July 20, 1981. “The university’s Board of Trustees also dropped women’s golf and noted that the decision on the two sports would save $130,000 in the athletic budget. Tom Milkovich, the wrestling coach for four years and the one who built Auburn into the ninth-ranking NCAA program, was stunned.”

Scholarships were revoked and students transferred out. Tom would never coach at the college level again. For Jamie, the decision was life-altering. With his plans to remain in Auburn over, he left a quarter short of graduation to coach Maple Heights High. At just 22, he had wrestled the older brothers of his own students. But he was finally coaching, and never looked back.

Coach Jamie Milkovich amassed 594 wins—by far the most in state history—and despite the socioeconomic changes affecting Maple Heights, kept its wrestling program a winner.

But outside the mat, he emerged as something more—an educator.

He taught reading and language arts for 35 years, and gives free lectures to the community in his spare time. Some of his wrestlers went on to good careers, a point of pride equal to his number of wins. He was Maple Heights’ Citizen of the Year in 2013.

“One thing wrestling does is humbles you. It teaches you how to fail, let me tell you. You remember all those losses, and it gives you the courage to try. Especially in working-class communities like Maple Heights, I think I inspired a lot of kids.”

Milkovich was inducted into the Ohio High School Athletic Hall of Fame in 2024 as the state’s all-time winningest wrestling coach. But for years, the Auburn wound never healed. It wasn’t until 2002, when the 1980 wrestling team was honored by announcement at halftime of a football game, that he could think differently. While Auburn may feel like a lost paradise of wrestling, the dream of its return never goes away.

“It’s been a really wonderful life,” said Milkovich. “How many people can say they did exactly what they wanted to do with their life? I really feel like I did.”

By Derek Herscovici ’14