Bethlehem, Pa. - The Hall of Fame Committee of the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association, college wrestling’s oldest conference, has announced that its Class of 2017 is Mack Lewnes of Cornell University, who was the Dave Schultz High School Excellence Award winner for Maryland in 2006; Gerry Maurey of Penn State University; Dick Santoro of Lehigh University, who received the Lifetime Service to Wrestling award from the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2013; and Greg Strobel from Lehigh University, who was inducted as a Distinguished Member in 2012 and who received the Lifetime Service to Wrestling award from the Oregon Chapter in 2010.

The induction ceremony will be held on March 4, 2017 at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, immediately preceding the finals of the EIWA tournament.

“The committee is proud to announce the election of these four outstanding wrestlers and individuals into the EIWA Hall of Fame,” said committee chairman Jamie Moffatt. “Each one of them has distinguished himself on the wrestling mats as an EIWA champion wrestler and/or coach & official. All four were team and conference leaders either during the EIWA ‘Golden Years’ of the 1950s or the most recent millennium. We welcome them into our Hall of Fame.”

Mack Lewnes – Cornell – Class of 2011

Born into a wrestling family – his father wrestled at the University of Oklahoma and his older brother, Sam, competed for the Oklahoma State Cowboys – Mack Lewnes was an outstanding grappler in high school at Mount St. Joseph in Baltimore. He won the Maryland state championship four times and the National Prep title twice. He attended the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado for a year after his high school graduation before enrolling in the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University in 2007.

Lewnes became a rare four-time EIWA champion during his career at Cornell. He also was a three-time NCAA All-American. Lewnes’ collegiate record is 150 wins against just 12 losses. He pinned 55 of his opponents. As of the start of the current season, Lewnes holds the all-time Cornell career record for most wins and pins.

As a freshman, Lewnes won the EIWA tournament at 165 pounds, edging Shanaman of Pennsylvania in overtime in the finals. He finished fourth at the NCAAs in St. Louis, going 4-2 in the tournament. Lewnes won the EIWA tournament again as a sophomore, beating Rendos from Bucknell in the finals, 5-3. He entered the NCAAs undefeated for the year, but was upset in the first round and did not place.

During his junior year, Lewnes again won the Easterns. He advanced to the 174 pound NCAA finals, where he fell to Iowa’s Borschel, 6-2. During his senior season, he won his fourth EIWA title and led his Cornell team to their fifth consecutive team title. Two weeks later, he picked up his third  All-American honors by finishing fourth at 174 pounds in the NCAAs.

After graduation from Cornell Lewnes assisted with coaching the Finger Lakes Wrestling Club in Ithaca. Lewnes has since returned to live in his hometown of Annapolis, MD with his wife Kim (Cornell ’11). He works as a Regional Sales Manager for Milwaukee Tool.

Gerry Maurey – Penn State – Class of 1954

Gerry Maurey followed his elder brothers Jim and Don onto the wrestling mats at Clearfield (PA) high school and at Penn State University. Under the tutelage of legendary coach Art Weiss at Clearfield, Maurey became the first four-time Pennsylvania High School wrestling champion.

Unable to compete collegiately for Penn State as a freshman, Maurey demonstrated his wrestling prowess in the freestyle wrestling world. He made the first USA Pan Am team as a freshman beating out George Feuerbach, Alan Rice and Murray Edelman for the spot.

During his sophomore season Maurey went undefeated at 137 pounds until the finals of the EIWA tournament where he lost to three-time champion Feuerbach of Lehigh. He later that year beat both Rice and Feuerbach to earn 2nd place in the National AAU tournament.

Maurey won his first EIWA title his junior year at 137 pounds, pinning all four of his opponents. He was instrumental in helping the 1953 Nittany Lions win their first NCAA team championship. He lost to fellow Pennsylvanian and eventual champion Gus DeAugustino in an early round but came back to place 3rd.

During his senior season, Maurey wrestled Hall of Famer Eddie Eichelberger to a 5-5 draw up at 147 pounds in the Lehigh-Penn State dual meet. At the end of the season Maurey dropped back down to his usual 137-pound weight class where he successfully defended his EIWA title. At the NCAA tournament, he was upended by Oklahoma State icon Myron Roderick 5-2, but again came back through the consolations to finish in third place.

After graduation, Maurey spent many years coaching wrestling at numerous schools including five seasons at Clearfield High School (replacing Art Weiss), Bloomsburg University, and initiating and coaching the Florida A&M University wrestling program. He is now retired and lives in Tallahassee with his wife of 60 years, Betty.

Richard ‘Dick” Santoro – Lehigh University – Class of 1959

Dick Santoro graduated from Bethlehem’s Liberty High School in 1955 and enrolled in Lehigh University’s School of Engineering the following fall. He moved into the starting lineup on the wrestling team as a sophomore at 147 pounds and went on to become one of just two Lehigh wrestlers to go undefeated in dual meets during their entire career. He captained the team during his junior and senior seasons.

Santoro’s career record was 48-4-4 - a percentage of .893 that ranks in the top 15 in Lehigh history. As a sophomore in 1957, he finished 2nd in the EIWA tournament, losing to Penn State’s Dave Adams in the finals, 4-3. Santoro won the EIWA tournament as a junior at 147 pounds, downing Cornell’s Dick Vincent, 3-2 to capture his first title. Santoro dropped down to 137 for the NCAA tournament where he made it to the semi-finals before losing to Oklahoma’s eventual champion, Paul Aubrey, 5-3. Santoro came back through the consolations to place 3rd.

In 1959, Santoro led the Engineers to their first EIWA team championship in 10 years. Wrestling in the 137-pound class, he handily won his second conference title by shutting out Rutgers’ Tom Grifa, 5-0 in the finals. Santoro earned the prestigious Fletcher Award for his career accomplishments in the EIWA tournament.

Along with his two sons, Rich (three-time AA) and Pat (four-time AA), the Santoro family garnered eight All-American honors, ranking in the top five in NCAA history for father/son total medals.

After graduation, Santoro spent over 30 years officiating college and high school wrestling matches in the Mid-Atlantic region. He is a member of the EIWA Officials Hall of Fame and in 2013 he was given the ‘Lifetime Service to Wrestling’ award by the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

Santoro spent his entire working career in the computer industry and is now retired, living with his wife Mary in the Bethlehem area.

Greg Strobel – Lehigh Head Coach – 1994-2008

Greg Strobel’s wrestling career began at Scappoose High School in Oregon, where he won three state championships at 191 pounds. Staying close to home, he wrestled at Oregon State under Hall of Fame coach Dale Thomas. Strobel was a three-time All-American and twice an NCAA champion, compiling a 124-5-1 record. He was named the Outstanding Wrestler in the 1973 tournament and finished his collegiate career with 77 consecutive victories.

Prior to accepting the head coaching position at Lehigh University, Strobel was an assistant coach at Oregon State, the head wrestling coach at Roseburg, Oregon High School, the National Teams Director at USA Wrestling, and the head wrestling coach of Team Foxcatcher.

Taking over a storied wrestling program that had fallen on hard times during the 1985-1994 decade, Strobel quickly returned Lehigh to the prominence that fans were accustomed to on Old South Mountain. From 1994 through 2008, Strobel’s teams compiled a 189-83-1 dual meet record. He led the Mountain Hawks to six EIWA championships, including five in a row from 2002 through 2006. His wrestlers captured 28 individual EIWA titles and 30 All-American honors. Strobel also coached two NCAA champions: Rob Rohn in 2002 and Troy Letters in 2004.

Awards have not eluded Greg Strobel. He was named the EIWA Coach of the Year four times. In the 2003-2004 season, when Lehigh finished third in the NCAA team race, he was voted the NWCA National Coach of the Year.  USA Wrestling named him Man of the Year in 2010. He was inducted into the Oregon State Sports Hall of Fame in 1993 and into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2012 as a Distinguished Member.

Strobel currently is an Assistant Athletic Director at Lehigh and the Executive Director of the EIWA. He and his wife Donna continue to reside in Bethlehem.