Wrestling's wordsmith
By JON KASPER of the Missoulian Missoula Montana
Lanny Bryant and his son, Cody, sit in Lanny's basement where they and other family members produce Wrestling USA magazine in Missoula last week. Lanny, a former Missoula Hellgate and Montana State head wrestling coach, will be enshrined in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame
Photo by TOM BAUER/Missoulian
Missoula's Lanny Bryant to receive Order of Merit honor for pioneering wrestling magazine
Nothing will top Stillwater, Okla. Not Poland, Russia, Mexico, Sweden or Japan.
Wrestling took Missoula's Lanny Bryant around the globe. This week, the sport that has been a part of Bryant's life for 50 years leads him to the ultimate honor in Stillwater.
The 64-year-old editor-in-chief of Wrestling USA magazine and former Missoula Hellgate and Montana State head coach will be enshrined in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame on Saturday night. Bryant will be the 12th Order of Merit recipient. The honor is presented "to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the advancement of wrestling, other than success as an athlete or coach.''
"What makes this, as I told Lanny, one of the most prestigious awards is that it comes from the Distinguished Members who have been voted into the Hall of Fame,'' said Hall of Fame President Myron Roderick. "Lanny was nominated by them and voted on by them. The Distinguished Members hold the highest honor in amateur wrestling."
Bryant and roughly 35 family members will travel to Stillwater for the three-day celebration which culminates with the honors banquet Saturday night. Bryant said he'll be allowed five minutes to speak.
"I'm just going to basically tell them this isn't about me,'' Bryant said. "It's about all the people in the sport of wrestling who have helped me out and who have the same philosophy about what a great sport this is and what it can do for the youth of America. Those are the persons who deserve this honor more than one person."
Bryant said he was "stunned" when Roderick, the legendary former Oklahoma State coach, called him earlier this year with the news. Bryant said Roderick was one of his boyhood heroes.
"We talked business for about 10 minutes,'' Bryant said. "And then he said, 'Oh, by the way, you've been elected into the wrestling Hall of Fame.' It stunned me to death. I didn't know what to say. It was quite a surprise, really it was. It meant a lot to a guy who has been in the sport all his life.''
Bryant made a huge impact during his successful high school and collegiate coaching career - including helping start Missoula's prestigious Rocky Mountain Classic - but his work with the magazine is what landed him a spot in the Hall.
Bryant, a retired biology and physical education teacher with no journalism experience, sought an outlet to promote the sport, especially at the high school level. While Bryant was coaching in Worland, Wyo., he and two other coaches put together an eight-page black-and-white publication and called it Scholastic Wrestling News.
"We struggled for the first two or three years,'' Bryant said. "We kept losing money. Then after a couple of years one of the coaches got out. He got tired of subsidizing it. About 10 years later, the other coach got out.''
Bryant, who at the time was steering Hellgate's program toward the top of the Class AA ranks, took full control in 1976.
The latest edition featured 79 color pages. Roughly 15,000 copies were sent to subscribers in all 50 states and 26 countries. The magazine, designed and edited in the basement of Bryant's home on Apple House Lane and printed in Kentucky, is published 12 times a year and is a must-read for amateur wrestling fans.
The magazine's bread and butter is its coverage of high school wrestling. Bryant relies on state editors to provide much of the content.
"What he's done with the magazine is he has really put the high school market throughout the United States,'' Roderick said. "He's done the best job ever at getting information out about all the top high school wrestlers. That doesn't mean he doesn't cover other things.''
The magazine features All-America high school teams, as well as comprehensive features on the top freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors in the country. Youth and collegiate wrestling is also profiled, as are stories about training methods and coaching techniques.
"He's totally in charge of it,'' said Cody Bryant, Lanny's son, and the magazine's managing editor. "He's the one who decides what material goes in and he's the one who basically contacts the coaches and people like that.''
Cody, a three-time state champion at Hellgate and the Knights' former coach, is one of several members of the Bryant family involved with the magazine. Ann, Lanny's wife of 43 years, and their daughters LanAnn and Shannon are administrative assistants. Another daughter Lady is the design and art director.
"It's amazing how people in the sport of wrestling chip in and help out,'' Lanny said. "The state editors feed us information. We get tons of photos. People donate articles. It's just a matter of putting it together from that point. The entire family has been involved since they were old enough to lick stamps and not eat them.''
The magazine's Web site has added another element. Lanny said he set up the Web site - www.wrestlingusa.com - after buying a program and reading the instruction manual. In February, the month most states hold their high school state wrestling tournaments, the site received an average of 217,000 hits per day.
"His baby is the Web site,'' Cody said. "He spends a lot of time on the Web site. He hates to leave. He's trying to download information all the time.''
To promote the magazine, Lanny and Ann travel yearly to the Montana all-class state tournament in Billings and the NCAA wrestling championships. The two are also fixtures at national events and will be attending the World Championships in New York later this summer.
"I wasn't smart enough to know it couldn't be done,'' Lanny said when asked about the success of his magazine. "You always look for goals in life and one good thing about being naive and young is you think you can accomplish a lot more than you can."
Wrestling will take Lanny Bryant one other place he's never been - the golf course.
Lanny, who had never golfed until Cody took him to the range last week, plans to tee it up at Friday's golf outing in Stillwater.
"I want to try not to be last if I possibly can,'' Bryant said.
Bryant has devoted 50 years to sport he loves
By Wade McWhorter
Sports Writer
News Press, Stillwater Oklahoma
Whether he's ever met them in person or not, Lanny Bryant has had a profound affect on wrestlers, coaches and fans across the globe.
Even so, Bryant had no idea of the impending magnitude of a phone call he received from Myron Roderick several months ago.
"I'd been talking business with Myron for about five, 10 minutes - which we do on a regular basis - when he says, 'Oh yeah, by the way, you've been elected into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame,'" Bryant said. "I was just speechless. I'm 64-years old and I've been at it (wrestling) since junior high - this is the pinnacle for me."
Roderick is the President of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, and amongst the halls of the museum building at 405 W. Hall of Fame Ave. are scattered hundreds of copies of Wrestling USA magazine.
Were it not for Bryant and a vision he had nearly four decades ago, those magazines would not exist.
Bryant is the editor-in-chief of Wrestling USA, and Saturday he will be enshrined in the Hall of Fame's Class of 2003 as an Order of Merit recipient. It's a fitting honor for a man who has devoted over 50 years of his life to wrestling and considers himself part of "a real fraternity of people who love and promote the sport."
Wrestling USA is an outlet for Bryant to share with wrestling's legion of fans his lifelong love of the sport - a love affair that began when his family moved from Amarillo, Texas, to Colorado Springs, Colo.
Bryant, who was in his early junior high school days at the time, entered a city wrestling meet soon after the move and took second place. The next year, he won the meet.
But in fact, the competitors on the mat might not have been Bryant's toughest challenge.
"My dad was a Southern Baptist minister, and the tournament was on a Sunday - I had to do a pretty good job of begging just to get to go," Bryant said.
His father's decision proved to be a good one. Bryant competed in wrestling in high school and then at the collegiate level at the University of Northern Colorado. He said he truly fell in love with the sport in high school and became determined to one day become a coach on the mats.
That dream came to life as Bryant dedicated 25 years of his life to coaching, including stints at Montana State University and Western Washington State College.
It was during his time coaching that Bryant first went into the publishing business, as he and two other coaches spawned Scholastic Wrestling News.
"Amateur Wrestling already existed, but it didn't cover scholastic wrestling," Bryant explained. "We started out with an eight-page, black-and-white production, but we were struggling and losing money. After three years, one of the coaches got out and about eight years later the other one got out. It was up to me at that point."
So despite having no journalism background - Bryant is a former biology teacher - he gave up teaching and coaching in 1987 and made publishing his family business.
"I had to learn all about journalism through the school of hard knocks," Bryant said. "I got out of teaching and coaching and got into the magazine full time. We were still losing money at first, but then it started to grow with all the time and energy we put into it.
"I had everyone helping - my five kids, wrestlers - it's definitely a family business. The wrestlers would help us mail it out after they finished with practice, and as soon as my kids were old enough that they weren't eating the stamps, they'd be helping us with the stamps and address labels."
Bryant said that as a former coach, he knew what he liked to read and that helped his decision-making on the content of Wrestling USA.
As Bryant's knowledge of the publishing business grew, so did his magazine.
Now in its 38th year, Wrestling USA is a 64-page magazine that prints 15,000 issues monthly and has subscribers in 50 states and 26 countries.
The magazine includes features on the country's top high school wrestlers as well as stories on weight training, dieting and coaching techniques.
And Bryant's website - www.wrestlingusa.com - gets 20,000 hits weekly, while in February, when most states held their high school state wrestling tournaments, the site averages 217,000 hits per day.
It's the type of success story Bryant never figured would happen.
"Absolutely not," Bryant replied when asked if he expected Wrestling USA to blossom into a magazine read throughout the world. "We started with the first ones in black-and-white and only eight pages because if we started too big we'd have been in big trouble. Now we've got 64 pages all in color and our advertising and subscription list just keeps growing.
"What we have now was always the dream. We had a certain advantage because it's a specialized market."
And now, Bryant has become a specialized member of the wrestling fraternity he so dearly loves.
Former UNC Wrestler To Be honored At The National Wrestling Hall Of Fame Banquet
Lanny Bryant wrestled from 1958-62 at UNC.
STILLWATER,OKLA- Lanny Bryant (left) has spent a lifetime devoted to wrestling. He was a very successful high school and collegiate wrestler, an extraordinary high school coach and administrator, a college coach and the founder and Editor-in-chief of Wrestling USA Magazine.
Lanny competed in junior high school and high school in Colorado Springs, and at the University of Northern Colorado. He felt strongly that the schoolboy wrestler and his coach were not receiving adequate information and recognition. While teaching biology and coaching at Worland, Wyoming, he joined with two other wrestling coaches with the same dream and Scholastic Wrestling news was born. The magazine ran in the red for three years and other two coaches were tired of subsidizing their dream. In 1976 the Bryant Family became the sole owners of Wrestling USA magazine, formerly Scholastic Wrestling News.
Bryant worked long hours, especially during wrestling season. He taught five biology classes, conducted wrestling practice, and then on weekends traveled to meets. All this and publishing the magazine. In 1987 he retired from teaching and coaching and took a leap of faith. Wrestling USA magazine became a full time job. The decision was a good one as the magazine has only gotten better. The magazine is now in its 38th years of publishing. It is a 64 page all color quality magazine, and 15,000 issues are printed each month. The magazine has subscribers in 50 states and 26 countries. Bryant's website, which keeps current with the latest wrestling results and tournament locations and dates, reaches 20,000 people each week. He is careful to keep both information outlets focused on the positive aspects of amateur wrestling, with an emphasis on scholastic wrestling.
Bryant's contribution to wrestling through his publication is immeasurable. He has done more to elevate awareness of the high school talent than anyone in the sport.
Bryant has also contributed to the sport of wrestling by serving as a coach of the Montana and Wyoming High School Cultural exchange Teams, the National Coach of the USA Junior World Team, the USA Junior Teams to Russia and Poland, and Team Leader for the USA World-Schoolboy Team in Stockholm, Sweden, and Mexico City. He has become a fixture a the NCAA tournaments, USA Wrestling Championships and other regional and national competitions through the United States.
Lanny Bryant will be inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame as an Order of Merit recipient during Honors Weekend on June 7, 2003 in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
LAN ANN BRYANT BORN JUNE 9, 1961 IN GARDEN GROVE, CA
LA MONTE BRYANT BORN MAY 6, 1962, IN GREELEY, CO
CODY WAYNE BRYANT BORN JANUARY 11, 1965 IN WORLAND, WY
LADY MICHELLE BRYANT BORN OCTOBER 26, 1967 IN WORLAND, WY
SHANNON DAWN BRYANT BORN NOVEMBER 10, 1970 IN BELLINGHAM, WA
WILLIAM CASWELL BRYANT
MINNIE EVELYN (GAINES) BRYANT
WILLIAM CASWELL BRYANT
WILLIAM ANDREW BRYANT
WILLIAM JOSHIA BRYANT
DONNIE EDWINA (BUTLER) BRYANT
JOHN H BRYANT
WILLIAM CASWELL BRYANT
MELLISA BELLE(PURSELLEY)BRYANT
CASWELL PURSELLEY
SARAH EMILY(ORRELL)PURSELLEY
JAMES ALPHA PURSELLEY
MINNIE EVELYN (GAINES) BRYANT
JAMES SAMUAL GAINES
JAMES MONROE GAINES
SUSAN M (LYON) GAINES
LYON
MINNIE EVELYN (GAINES) BRYANT
EVALINA CATHERINE(COKER)GAINES
CHARLES COKER
BETTYE ELIZEBETH CALHOUN)COKER
GILES B CALHOUN
LAN ANN BRYANT BORN JUNE 9, 1961 IN GARDEN GROVE, CA
LA MONTE BRYANT BORN MAY 6, 1962, IN GREELEY, CO
CODY WAYNE BRYANT BORN JANUARY 11, 1965 IN WORLAND, WY
LADY MICHELLE BRYANT BORN OCTOBER 26, 1967 IN WORLAND, WY
SHANNON DAWN BRYANT BORN NOVEMBER 10, 1970 IN BELLINGHAM, WA
LANNY WAYNE BRYANT
WINNIFRED ANN (ROBINSON) BRYANT
WILLIAM CASWELL BRYANT
MINNIE EVELYN (GAINES) BRYANT
ELBERT HUBBARD ROBINSON
WINNIFRED PEARL (EWING) ROBINSON
WILLIAM ANDREW BRYANT
MELLISA BELLE (PURSELLEY) BRYANT
JAMES SAMUAL GAINES
EVALINA CATHERINE (COKER) GAINES
HENRY GEORGE ROBINSON
CORA BELLE (LAND) ROBINSON
ELMER ELLSWORTH EWING
MAMIE MAE (HARRIS) EWING
WILLIAM JOSHIA BRYANT
CASWELL PURSELLEY
JAMES MONROE GAINES
CHARLES COKER
WILLIANSON MILBURN ROBINSON
EMILY JOSEPHINE (HENDERSON) LAND