PANKRATZ INDUCTED INTO JACKS HALL OF FAME
More than three decades after becoming a four-time All-American wrestler with South Dakota State University, Freeman native and Flyers standout Mike Pankratz is properly recognized
For those familiar with Freeman High School athletics in the 1980s, the name Mike Pankratz is easily associated with wrestling. After all, he along with teammates whose last names included Wallman, Sayler, Holzwarth, Ulmer and Stahl produced the best era of wrestling in the history of the Flyers that included back-to-back state championships in 1987 and 1988.
But the name Mike Panktatz is also heavily associated with wrestling at the collegiate level, too, following his four years as a Jackrabbit at South Dakota State University, where he was the school’s first four-time All-American and a two-time champion of the North Central Conference — by far the most competitive Division II conference in the country.
Now, 32 years later, he is being properly recognized for his contribution to athletics at the state’s largest university.
Saturday morning, Sept. 27 Pankratz was inducted into the Jackrabbit Sports Hall of Fame at South Dakota State University at a banquet held inside Club 71 on the suite level of Dayna J. Dykhouse Stadium — the home of SDSU football — and then publicly recognized on the field at halftime of the Jacks game against Mercyhurst.
“It feels pretty good,” Pankratz told The Courier Saturday afternoon, after he and the five other members of the Jackrabbit Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2025 were introduced. “I don’t know if I can really express it in words.”
At 55 years old, Pankratz is the oldest of the six newest inductees and doesn’t know what took the university so long, but he’s happy to formally button up a memorable career as a wrestler at both the high school and college level.
“It actually gives me closure,” he said. “Back then they didn’t do anything like this — they didn’t have banquets or anything like that.
When I got done wrestling, that’s what they did,” Pankratz continued, slapping a shoulder with an atta-boy. “That’s all the closure you got. So — yeah — it feels pretty good.”
Learning to wrestle
Pankratz discovered early on that he had what it took to be a pretty good wrestler, thinking back to a tournament in Yankton he went to when he was in kindergarten or first grade. He didn’t see any action that day, but after the competition was over, he wrestled the kid who won in his weight class — just for fun — and defeated him quickly.
“It was the one sport where I just walked into the room as was naturally good at it,” Pankratz said. “I had to wrestle kids who were a grade or two higher than me to give me competition. I was just so strong and so quick, had really good balance and was a quick learner. It was just a natural fit for me.”
Mike Pankratz (left of the trophy) and the 1988 state champion Flyers. COURIER FILE PHOTO
Pankratz was also around a really good group of other young grapplers who motivated each other to a high degree, leading to both maturity and success.
“We were just so confident we were going to win, and we did,” he said. “It was fun.”
Pankratz won an individual state championship his sophomore season and then, led by Coach Gary “Smokey” Wallman, helped the Flyers secure back-to-back Class B state titles in 1987 and 1988.
“It was fun being that dominant,” he said. “Freeman’s always been a basketball town, but for a few years there, our wrestlers were pretty good.”
From Flyers to Jacks
Pankratz was recruited for college by Mike Engles, the late great wrestling coach for South Dakota State University, and enrolled there in the fall of 1988.
It was a great fit, he says.
“Brookings isn’t too big where you get lost and it wasn’t too small,” he said. “It’s close to home so I knew I could have friends and family coming to see me. It was just comfortable.”
Pankratz figured he would hit the ground running but encountered a reality check. Not only was he only winning half of his matches, he lost a wrestle-off to a teammate at 126 lbs.
“I was disappointed in myself; that wasn’t my plan,” he said. “My coach sat me down and said, ‘Mike, let’s redshirt you,’ and that was the best thing that could have happened to me.”
“Had I won that wrestle-off, I probably wouldn’t have had the success that I had,” Pankratz continued. “I needed to get better. I needed to get a lot stronger. I needed to change my technique in the wrestling room, because I was going from wrestling boys to wrestling men, and that’s a huge step up. You’re wrestling guys who had success wherever they came from — guys who are three, four years older than you, who are way stronger and way smarter.
“I needed that year to get better.”
And he did. By the time his sophomore season arrived, Pankratz was back in peak form, beating guys who were ranked and placing sixth in the 1990 national tournament to achieve All-American status for the first time (a broken arm in that fifth/sixth place match was the only serious injury of his career).
And when his coach told him that SDSU had never had a four-time All-American, that was all the motivation Pankratz needed.
“It springboarded me to want to do better — to keep it going,” he said. “I also think I’m half crazy.”
Pankratz worked his butt off in the years that followed, living a college wrestling career of two-a-days and weight cuts to remain in the 126 lb. division, where he felt he had his best chance at a national title. He finished fifth at nationals in both 1991 and 1992 and had his eyes on gold his final year.
But it was a grind.
Pankratz remembers having to cut weight from 157 lbs. at the start of the season to get down to 126, “and it almost killed me. In retrospect I probably should have gone to 134 lbs., but I was stubborn.”
Plus, he says, “I thought it was the best chance at winning a national title.”
Pankratz ended up repeating as the North Central Conference 126 lb. champion — a conference he called “a meat grinder — and went into nationals as the favorite. He hadn’t lost to a Division II opponent all season, went into the final tournament as the No. 1 ranked and No. 1 seeded wrestler and, all the better, the national tournament was being held at Frost Arena in Brookings.
“Everything was set up for the ultimate ending of a career,” he said.
But Pankratz lost, falling 4-2 to an opponent he had never faced before.
“I remember it like it was yesterday; I walked off the mat feeling numb,” he said. “I let everybody down. I let my teammates down. I let my coach down. I let my family down. Myself down. I walked back to the wrestling room and I just cried.”
But he also picked himself back up.
“Next best medal is bronze,” he remembers thinking. “So I pull myself together and said, ‘OK, I’m not going to win it so I’m going to go get the best place I can get. I spent five years grinding — pouring my heart and soul into this. It was a tough pill to swallow, but I finished out the tournament and got third.”
“It was bittersweet,” he said. “It was bitter in the fact that I didn’t win, but it was sweet in that my career was finally over. My body was telling me it was time to quit. I was tired. I was physically worn out. Maybe, in hindsight, I was lucky to get third place. I don’t know if I could have gone another month.”
Indeed, Pankratz said all those years of wrestling — and that drastic weight cut his final year — had taken a toll.
“You put your body through a lot of damage,” he said. “It’s not made for that.”
Life after wrestling
Pankratz finished his career as a Jackrabbit with a 108-27-2 record and was just the fourth 100-win wrestler in school history.
The Pankratz family: Isabella, Sterne, Michael, Amy and Lincoln. COURTESY PHOTO
He graduated from SDSU with a degree in agriculture in the spring of 1994 and eventually began building his new life in Sioux Falls. He married his high school sweetheart, Amy Herrboldt, in 1992, was hired by Dana Dykhouse to work at Western Bank in Sioux Falls out of college — a connection he says he wouldn’t have had were it not for college athletics — and has been a loan officer at First Premier Bank since 2010.
He and Amy have a daughter at SDSU and twin boys who are freshman at Southeast Tech and Lake Area Tech.
And he still maintains a family connection to wrestling. His nephew, Logan, is a junior at Freeman Public and is part of the wrestling program there, having competed in the last two state tournaments.
As for last weekend’s induction into Jackrabbit Sports Hall of Fame, it’s the perfect ending to a long and hard — but largely successful — career, even if it came 32 years later.
“It’s humbling,” he said. “It’s an honor. It’s also recognition for the work that you put into it. The one thing I really take away from this that I’m thankful for are the teammates I got to wrestle with. I wouldn’t be in the hall of fame without all those teammates and coaches I had, from Gary to Mike Engels.
“You can’t have success alone,” Pankratz continued. “You have to have somebody with you. This is an honor and they own part of it.”
