Fan voting for the 2019 WIN Magazine/Culture House Dan Hodge Trophy has begun. The Hodge Trophy is the top award in college wrestling and has been presented annually since 1994 to the nation’s most dominant collegiate wrestler.
The award is named after Dan Hodge, the former three-time (1955-57) NCAA champion from the University of Oklahoma, who did not allow a takedown in his career and pinned 36 of 46 victims.
Voting Criteria
Criteria for the award include:
- A wrestler’s record;
- Number of pins;
- Dominance on the mat;
- Quality of competition;
- Past credentials;
- Sportsmanship/citizenship; and
- Heart
The first four criteria are the primary criteria. Number of pins is an extremely important criteria. Part of the reason the award was created was to elevate the importance of the pin, and to motivate top collegians to go for the fall. The Hodge Trophy is a single-season award. However, if you have two candidates who are virtually equal, consideration can be given to past credentials, which is criteria No. 5. The last two criteria should be used to help guide voters to select a winner who also is a good representative of the sport.
The winner will be announced on Tuesday, April 2nd. The winner of the fan vote will earn two first-place votes among the total ballots from a group of formal voters which includes each former Hodge Trophy winner, national media, representatives of national wrestling organizations and retired former college coaches from different regions.
The deadline for your vote is this Friday, March 29, at 5:00 pm CST.
The 2019 Finalists
The following is a statistical breakdown, in alphabetical order, of the four finalists.
Anthony Ashnault
149 pounds, Rutgers, Senior, South Plainfield, N.J.
| Record | Pins | TF | MD | Bonus Point % |
| 32-0 | 8 | 4 | 7 | 59% |
Yianni Diakomihalis
141 pounds, Cornell, Sophomore, Rochester, New York
| Record | Pins | TF | MD | Bonus Point % |
| 29-0 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 59% |
Bo Nickal
197 pounds, Penn State, Senior, Allen, Texas
| Record | Pins | TF | MD | Bonus Point % |
| 30-0 | 18 | 3 | 6 | 90% |
Jason Nolf
157 pounds, Penn State, Senior, Yatesboro, Pennsylvania
| Record | Pins | TF | MD | Bonus Point % |
| 31-0 | 15 | 5 | 6 | 87% |
Cast your vote for the 2019 Dan Hodge Trophy below. Please check your email for next week’s Hodge Trophy announcement.
Mike Finn, who became editor of WIN Magazine in 2003, has been covering amateur wrestling for the past 33 years. He can be reached at mikef@win-magazine.com.
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