Missouri wrestling coach Brian Smith once visited a recruit in Colorado, a heavyweight prospect who never made it to Columbia. But Smith couldn’t believe what hung on the recruit’s wall: A photo of Ben Askren.
There he was, Mizzou’s two-time national champion. In the home of a high school wrestler. In Colorado.
“What other athlete at Missouri has that in another state?” Smith marveled last week.
That memory encapsulates why Askren is ranked so high on this list — and one spot ahead of Mizzou wrestling great J’den Cox, the program’s only three-time national champion. In many ways, Askren was bigger than Mizzou.