J-Club Hall of Honor | Event Registration

COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. - John Newman began his college wrestling career at Saint John's with some unfinished business.

The Watertown-Mayer High School graduate finished third at 160 pounds at the 1995 Class A state tournament, falling only on a 9-5 decision to Dover-Eyota senior Jim Peterson in the quarterfinals.

Newman, a senior himself, rallied to defeat Gary Hieronimus of Adrian-Ellsworth in the third-place match. But the loss to Peterson sent him into the college ranks with something to prove.

"I didn't go to state to get third," he said. "That's just what I ended up with. You want to get over that final hump and finally win a championship. That's everyone's goal.

"It could have happened for me in high school, but it didn't. Which made it even sweeter when it finally did happen in college."

The memorable moment did arrive for Newman four years later. In March of 1999, on a mat at the College of New Jersey, he won a Division III national title at 174 pounds by a 2-1 decision in double overtime.

His opponent on that night? None other than Peterson, who'd gone on to wrestle at MIAC rival Augsburg – extending the back-and-forth rivalry between the two all the way through their respective college careers.

"You get to know someone pretty well when you wrestle them as often as I did with him," Newman said. "By that time, it was like a chess match between us. I knew what he was going to do and he knew what I was going to do. We both understood that whoever had the best night was going to come out on top.
 
"That night it was me, which was a relief. It was such a long journey. I started wrestling when I was in kindergarten, and it wasn't until 16 years later that I finally got where I wanted to go. But I earned the right to stand up there and call myself a national champion."

The four years between that moment and his state tournament setback had some ups and downs. Newman earned a spot in the Johnnie varsity lineup during his freshman season and qualified for nationals the following year, finishing third at 167 pounds.

"He just had a tenacity to him," recalls teammate Dan Tschudi, a two-time All-American who was two years older than Newman and helped recruit him to SJU. "He never stopped. No one worked like he did. His engine never quit. If he made mistakes, he learned from them and kept going. He wasn't going to be denied."



Financial circumstances, though, did bring Newman's momentum to a temporary halt. He had to leave school for a time as a junior and even looked into transferring to nearby St. Cloud State.

"We were just trying to figure out a way to make it work as a family," he recalled. "I did transfer to St. Cloud State and I'd gotten accepted. But a lot of the credits didn't transfer. So it would have taken me back to being a freshman academically."
 
Which is why Newman and his parents decided the best solution was to return to SJU and finish up. He was back on campus for the start of the second semester, which allowed him to compete for the final few weeks of his junior season.
 
He wasn't expecting to be part of the lineup at the MIAC Championships that year, but when Kyle Fagen – his replacement at 167 pounds – suffered a shoulder injury, he was called on to step in. 
He won the conference title and took a 7-0 record into the national meet, though he was unable to place there.
 
"I just wasn't in shape enough to compete competitively," he said. "That was tough."

That experience, though, just made him hungrier entering his senior season.

"I remember sitting down and talking to (teammate) Andy Lien after that meet was over," Newman said. "He'd finished third (as a senior that year). And we talked about how we were getting so close. Someone was going to get over the top and win a national championship. 
 
"I knew I could make it, but I needed a full season to do it," he said. "I came away so pumped from that conversation and I just kept going. I worked out as hard as I could throughout the summer so I'd be ready to go when the season started."

The preparation paid off with a stellar senior year and another berth in the national meet after finishing second to Peterson at 174 pounds at the MIAC championships – a match also decided in double overtime.

"He was one of the most adaptive wrestlers I can ever remember competing against," Peterson said. "You'd wrestle him once and come out on top. Then he'd figure out a way to change his approach and make it hard for you to score.

"The respect I had for him as a competitor was enormous."

Adjustments or not, though, in the national final, it initially appeared history might repeat itself. Peterson took a 1-0 lead in the second period. But, in the third, Newman managed an escape to tie the score. Then, after a two-minute overtime in which neither wrestler gained the edge, Newman won a coin flip and elected to begin the sudden-death second OT down. 

That allowed him to execute a second escape that made him the first Johnnie wrestler since Gary Svendsen in 1972 to capture a national championship.

"John isn't one of those super-intense people," then-SJU head coach John Elton said. "He always managed to keep things pretty light. But he had a lot of confidence in himself. He knew he could get the job done when he needed to. As a result of that belief, good things happened.
 
"It was the culmination of a long build for him. Getting to that next level is tough. We had some really good teams in those years with some really quality wrestlers who came close. That inspired John, and when he was able to make it to the top, it showed other people what was possible. It finally broke the ice in a way."

Indeed, Newman's national title was followed by another when Brandon Novak won at 197 pounds in 2001. Then, Minga Batsukh won three in a row (two at 141 pounds and one at 149) from 2009-11.

"John was the ultimate big-game guy," Novak said. "When the lights were at their brightest, he was at his best. That was really cool to see and watch.
 
"He was an opponent of mine in high school, and when I saw he was at Saint John's, it made me want to go there to. If it was good enough for a guy like him, it was good enough for me. He was a stud."
Newman felt the same way about the guys who came to SJU before him.

"Really, it all started with the guys who took me in as a freshman," he said. "Guys like Tschudi, Jason Scherber and some of the other guys who'd gone to nationals and placed. They set the stage. They created the infrastructure of a really good team where goals were set pretty high."

Newman has gone on to settle in Waconia where he has run Piling Systems, a foundation repair specialization business, for the past 20 years. He and his wife have two teenage daughters, but he still looks back fondly on his time at SJU.
 
"People who aren't part of a time like that don't get to have the great experiences with their best friends that I did," he said. "We were such a close-knit group. We were like brothers. When you spend as much time together as we did, you become a family."

2026 Hall of Honor Class 
The 2026 class will be inducted into the Saint John's University J-Club Hall of Honor in a ceremony this Homecoming Saturday – Oct. 17 - in Guild Hall (Old Gym). 

The dinner and enshrinement ceremony begins at 5 p.m. in Guild Hall (Old Gym). A Homecoming Celebration social will again take place outside the venue from 4-5 p.m. following SJU's football game against Concordia in Clemens Stadium prior to the dinner and program. 

Registration is $100 per person and includes dinner and beverages. Children ages 6-12 are $35 and those ages six-and-under are free. All proceeds go to the J-Club to support SJU athletics.

To register to attend, click here. 

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