He never won a high school state championship, but that didn’t keep Dennis Koslowski from making history. In 1992, he came out of retirement to win a silver medal at the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain, becoming the first U.S. Greco-Roman wrestler to win two Olympic medals.

Wrestling alongside his twin brother Duane at Doland High School in South Dakota, Dennis twice finished third in the state wrestling championships. After high school, the two brothers chose the University of Minnesota-Morris where both excelled in wrestling and football.

In wrestling, Dennis was a three-time All-American and won two NCAA Division III titles, at 190 pounds in 1980 and in 1982 at heavyweight. In football, he was all-conference three times. Duane also won a Division III wrestling title.

After graduating from college, Dennis stayed in Minnesota for chiropractic school and began wrestling Greco-Roman, a style in which he’d never before competed. He won the first of seven USA Wrestling national titles in 1983. By 1987, he’d won a World silver medal.

In 1988, he won the Olympic Trials and earned a trip to the Seoul Games. At the Olympics, wrestling 100 kilograms, Dennis won the bronze--the best performance on the U.S. team--and became the first U.S. Greco-Roman wrestler to win a medal at an Olympics that wasn’t marred by boycott.

He retired from wrestling to become USA Wrestling’s Greco-Roman National Coach, the first full-time coach to guide the U.S. team. In 1989, he led the USA to a sixth-place finish in the World Championships. A year later, he resigned from coaching to return to Minnesota and start his own chiropractic practice.

He returned to the mats in 1991. At the 1991 World Championships, although he did not surrender an offensive point, Koslowski placed seventh. In his opening match of the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, he defeated defending Olympic champion Andzej Wronski of Poland and then wrestled his way to the finals. In a hard-fought overtime battle, he lost to Cuban World champion Hector Millian, to earn the silver, his second Olympic medal.

For his history making efforts in Greco-Roman wrestling in the United States, Dennis Koslowski is honored as a Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.