2019 MSU Athletics Hall of Fame Feature: Tom Milkovich
10/23/2019 5:40:00 PM | Wrestling
Michigan State will induct five Spartans into its Athletics Hall of Fame on Thursday, Oct. 24 as part of its annual "Celebrate" weekend. The 2019 Hall of Fame Class includes: Dan Bass (football), Karen Dennis (track & field), Mike Donnelly (hockey), Tom Milkovich (wrestling) and Mike Robinson (basketball). Below is a profile on Tom Milkovich.
Tom Milkovich
Wrestling (1969-73)
Maple Heights, Ohio
Forever a student of the sport, wrestler Tom Milkovich considered himself a hard-worker. In fact, to this day he has always taken his father's advice of "If you put hard work into it, that's what you'll get out of it. It always comes back around and pays dividends," and put that advice to good use. Milkovich is now reaping one of those dividends and will be rewarded by being a 2019 inductee into the Michigan State Athletics Hall of Fame.
"To be inducted into the Michigan State Hall of Fame with all of the great athletes and coaches is quite an honor. I was thrilled," Milkovich said about being notified of his induction by MSU Athletics Director Bill Beekman. "I thought and hoped that at some point I might get in since I still hold a few records and because of the career I had. It took a lot of hard work and lot of people behind the scenes."
Milkovich's hard work paid off to the tune of being a national champion as a junior in 1972 at 142 pounds, along with being a four-time Big Ten Tournament champion, a feat so rare, that in the prestigious history of Big Ten wrestling, Milkovich was only the third wrestler to accomplish that feat at the time and presently only 16 wrestlers have won four Big Ten titles. Prior to his fourth conference championship crown in 1973, no one had been a four-time winner since 1950. No one was again until 1981.
Even more impressive and rare, Milkovich was undefeated in conference matches, not just one or two of his years as a Spartan, or even three, but all four years, becoming the first-ever Big Ten wrestler to go through conference competitions completely unblemished. That accomplishment was so rare that Milkovich was in uncharted territory, alone on an island as the first person in Big Ten history to do so.
"Of course I'm proud of my national championship, but I'm also proud that I won four Big Ten championships and I never got beat by anybody in the Big Ten, whether it was in a dual meet or a tournament. That record held for a long time until David Taylor (Penn State, 2011-14) and Ed Ruth (Penn State, 2011-14) equaled it. That's a long time to hold that record without anybody else accomplishing it," Milkovich said.
During his junior season of 1972, no one beat Milkovich in any match, conference or otherwise, winning the NCAA title at 142 pounds, finishing with a perfect 23-0 record.
He thought his career was ended just shy of the Big Ten Championships his senior season, as on the eve of the opening day of action, Milkovich broke his collarbone at practice.
"The doctor's told me that my career was over at Michigan State and that I couldn't wrestle with a broken collarbone. I told them 'I'm going to go to the Big Ten championships and the national championships and I'm going to try to win a fourth Big Ten championship. So you tell me what I have to do to get this done.' I had to be taped from my elbow up to my shoulder against my rib cage. I couldn't lift my arm because of the broken collarbone, but I wrestled that way," Milkovich said.
He figured out how to not just wrestle that way, but successfully wrestle that way, as he won the Big Ten title and went on the NCAA Tournament, reaching the semifinals before losing.
"By the time I got to the national tournament I had no strength in my shoulder," Milkovich said. "It was my fault I lost in the semi-finals. I was winning the match, but I was in so much pain that I had just had enough of it. The kid put a move on me and I couldn't get out of it because I just didn't have the strength."
Milkovich ended his career with an overall ledger of 93-7-1 with 11 pins. He won two Big Ten championships at 134 pounds his first two years as a Spartan. Moving up to 142 pounds as a junior didn't phase him, as he also won the Big Ten title on the way to his national championship. He completed the four-peat in 1973 also at 142 pounds, earning the Big Ten Conference's Most Outstanding Wrestler award.
Spanning beyond the Big Ten Conference, Milkovich was a three-time All-American and was on the East-West Collegiate All-Star team twice. He led the Spartans to three Big Ten team championships from 1970-1972.
Success was part of his family's business. One of six children of Mike and Barbara Milkovich, Tom learned his wrestling ways from his father, who was head coach at Maple Heights High School. Mike Milkovich was not only a charter member of the Ohio Wrestling Hall of Fame, but was also one of the few high school coaches elected to the Helms National Wrestling Hall of Fame. He led Maple Heights to 16 undefeated seasons, with 10 state championships, nine state runner-up finishes and 37 individual state champions.
Along with the sport of wrestling, Tom Milkovich learned about life through wrestling.
"The sport inherently teaches you a lot about life because it's a lot of hard work and you realize that you get out of the sport what you put into it," Milkovich said. "Like my father always told me, 'if you put hard work into it, that's what you'll get out of it. It always comes back around and pays dividends. If you don't work hard, like anything else in life you shouldn't expect to get very far.' I still believe that's the biggest thing people can learn from wrestling."
After a well-decorated high school career, Milkovich came to Michigan State and his success blossomed. He was later joined by his younger brother, Pat, who would become a two-time NCAA champion and four-time NCAA finalist for the Spartans.
Among all of Tom Milkovich's honors and memories, his brother, Pat, is the main role in one of the biggest.
"I have a lot of favorite memories from my time at Michigan State, but my proudest moment was when my brother Pat and I went to the national tournament, and Pat won the national championship as a 17 year-old freshman. I was really proud of that because he didn't have any scholarship money and walked on after I introduced him to MSU," Tom Milkovich said.
Milkovich's individual and family success is something that he's certainly very proud of, but he also takes great pride in the performances that went on with everything.
"I tried my best to be a good example to my fellow teammates and fans at Michigan State. I conducted myself as hardworking and professional. More than anything, I had a great love of entertaining the people that came to watch me wrestle. It was important to me that people came into the gym to watch Michigan State wrestling. We put a good show on," Milkovich said.
He remembered many matches that there were so many fans there to see that "good show," that the fans and wrestlers were mixed together on the sidelines.
"When I wrestled there we had great fans and they packed the gymnasium for us which was what excited us, particularly me, the most," Milkovich said proudly. "I remember there were matches at the IM Center where it was so packed that people were sitting on the floor between our bench and the wrestling mat. We had to step over them to get to the mat. They were loving the action because they were right there, and we were wrestling Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, Michigan. I felt like it was my obligation to give them the very best I had."
Another one of Milkovich's fondest memories is one of, if not the saddest of his time at Michigan State, but also one that perhaps taught him the most, affecting him for the rest of life.
Earning some recognition of one of the rewards of his "big man on campus" status, Milkovich was classmates with "one of the prettiest girls on campus." After two years of being so shy to say anything more than 'hello' or 'good luck on your test,' to, Milkovich was approached by this same girl at lunch one day and said that she had a friend on her floor that was very anxious to meet him. Well, after meeting her friend, Milkovich started dating the friend, Candice Mikula. A year-and-a-half later, Tom and Candice were 'going steady,' and 'in love.'
One late summer Sunday afternoon, Milkovich was on his way back home to East Lansing from working a wrestling camp in Ohio, and 35 miles from East Lansing, witnessed a car accident on a fairly deserted highway, seeing the car go through the guard-rail on a bridge and overturning into a creek bed. Milkovich stopped and tried to help, coming to the driver first, who was unresponsive and wasn't showing any signs of life. He went over to the passenger, who was badly bleeding and barely breathing from the horrible accident, completely unrecognizable. Milkovich and another passing motorist carried her back up to the side of the road and began CPR and waited for help to arrive. An ambulance later came and took over treatment of the passenger, but she passed away in the back of the ambulance. A short time later Milkovich learned that the unrecognizable passenger was none other than Candice, the love of his life.
Milkovich later received a phone call from Mrs. Mikula, thanking him for everything he did in taking care of her daughter in her last moments of life. Milkovich was heart-broken, stunned, devastated and in shock, full of thoughts and emotions. He wondered why God had put him there, on that very road, at that very moment, for that accident, and take care of this passenger that was so badly mangled that he didn't recognize as the girl that he had fallen in love with. Milkovich used that emotion as fuel for not just his wrestling career, but everyday life, knowing that any moment could be the last.
"You never know what kind of things are going to happen to you when you go to school, or in life, and you have to be able to deal with it," Milkovich said. "No matter who you are in this world, there's going to be times where things don't go your way. Your life isn't always going to go the way you dream it up and you're going to have to make an adjustment."
Throughout the road of his ups and downs, Milkovich has made adjustments and gained success from those adjustments, but not without a support system of his coaches and teammates.
"My coaches, Grady Peninger and Doug Blubaugh, were so inspirational and motivational to me. I learned so much about not just wrestling, but also life from them," Milkovich said. "I'm especially grateful to all of my teammates and especially my brother Pat because we worked hand in hand when I went to school there."
Milkovich also was thankful and is forever grateful to innumerable teammates, fellow student-athletes and friends, fondly including his roommates and close friends, in a sort of "who's who" of Michigan State athletics at that time.
"Brad Van Pelt, Joe DeLamielleure and John Shinsky were my long-time roommates, and they all inspired me to strive for greatness," Milkovich said. "I was also close friends with basketball players Gary Ganakas and Brian Breslin, and baseball player Steve Garvey, and they were all so great to be around and learn from. I also attribute part of my success to my close friend and training partner, Conrad Calendar, who I convinced to come to Michigan State after transferring from Kent State."
Milkovich took what he learned from his roommates and fellow student-athletes in other sports that when paired with his hard work led to a well-decorated wrestling career, as well as a successful career after wrestling.
He started coaching wrestling right after his own wrestling career came to a close, and like his father, Milkovich became a successful wrestling head coach, and has coached on some level every year since leaving MSU after graduating in in 1974 with a business degree.
Milkovich's coaching stops included Cleveland State, then Auburn, before temporarily retiring from collegiate head coaching, then later resuming it at the high school level in several high schools across Ohio, then back to the collegiate ranks, and is currently head coach at Walsh Jesuit High School in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. He was a high school vocational education skills teacher, teaching at risk youth not just about school, but life after high school and beyond, retiring a few years ago.
Milkovich has left a lasting impression on former students and athletes that's he has coached and taught over time, passing along many of the messages he's learned from his father, continuing to get rewarded for all the hard work he's put in.
Tom Milkovich
Wrestling (1969-73)
Maple Heights, Ohio
Forever a student of the sport, wrestler Tom Milkovich considered himself a hard-worker. In fact, to this day he has always taken his father's advice of "If you put hard work into it, that's what you'll get out of it. It always comes back around and pays dividends," and put that advice to good use. Milkovich is now reaping one of those dividends and will be rewarded by being a 2019 inductee into the Michigan State Athletics Hall of Fame.
"To be inducted into the Michigan State Hall of Fame with all of the great athletes and coaches is quite an honor. I was thrilled," Milkovich said about being notified of his induction by MSU Athletics Director Bill Beekman. "I thought and hoped that at some point I might get in since I still hold a few records and because of the career I had. It took a lot of hard work and lot of people behind the scenes."
Milkovich's hard work paid off to the tune of being a national champion as a junior in 1972 at 142 pounds, along with being a four-time Big Ten Tournament champion, a feat so rare, that in the prestigious history of Big Ten wrestling, Milkovich was only the third wrestler to accomplish that feat at the time and presently only 16 wrestlers have won four Big Ten titles. Prior to his fourth conference championship crown in 1973, no one had been a four-time winner since 1950. No one was again until 1981.
Even more impressive and rare, Milkovich was undefeated in conference matches, not just one or two of his years as a Spartan, or even three, but all four years, becoming the first-ever Big Ten wrestler to go through conference competitions completely unblemished. That accomplishment was so rare that Milkovich was in uncharted territory, alone on an island as the first person in Big Ten history to do so.
"Of course I'm proud of my national championship, but I'm also proud that I won four Big Ten championships and I never got beat by anybody in the Big Ten, whether it was in a dual meet or a tournament. That record held for a long time until David Taylor (Penn State, 2011-14) and Ed Ruth (Penn State, 2011-14) equaled it. That's a long time to hold that record without anybody else accomplishing it," Milkovich said.
During his junior season of 1972, no one beat Milkovich in any match, conference or otherwise, winning the NCAA title at 142 pounds, finishing with a perfect 23-0 record.
He thought his career was ended just shy of the Big Ten Championships his senior season, as on the eve of the opening day of action, Milkovich broke his collarbone at practice.
"The doctor's told me that my career was over at Michigan State and that I couldn't wrestle with a broken collarbone. I told them 'I'm going to go to the Big Ten championships and the national championships and I'm going to try to win a fourth Big Ten championship. So you tell me what I have to do to get this done.' I had to be taped from my elbow up to my shoulder against my rib cage. I couldn't lift my arm because of the broken collarbone, but I wrestled that way," Milkovich said.
He figured out how to not just wrestle that way, but successfully wrestle that way, as he won the Big Ten title and went on the NCAA Tournament, reaching the semifinals before losing.
"By the time I got to the national tournament I had no strength in my shoulder," Milkovich said. "It was my fault I lost in the semi-finals. I was winning the match, but I was in so much pain that I had just had enough of it. The kid put a move on me and I couldn't get out of it because I just didn't have the strength."
Milkovich ended his career with an overall ledger of 93-7-1 with 11 pins. He won two Big Ten championships at 134 pounds his first two years as a Spartan. Moving up to 142 pounds as a junior didn't phase him, as he also won the Big Ten title on the way to his national championship. He completed the four-peat in 1973 also at 142 pounds, earning the Big Ten Conference's Most Outstanding Wrestler award.
Spanning beyond the Big Ten Conference, Milkovich was a three-time All-American and was on the East-West Collegiate All-Star team twice. He led the Spartans to three Big Ten team championships from 1970-1972.
Success was part of his family's business. One of six children of Mike and Barbara Milkovich, Tom learned his wrestling ways from his father, who was head coach at Maple Heights High School. Mike Milkovich was not only a charter member of the Ohio Wrestling Hall of Fame, but was also one of the few high school coaches elected to the Helms National Wrestling Hall of Fame. He led Maple Heights to 16 undefeated seasons, with 10 state championships, nine state runner-up finishes and 37 individual state champions.
Along with the sport of wrestling, Tom Milkovich learned about life through wrestling.
"The sport inherently teaches you a lot about life because it's a lot of hard work and you realize that you get out of the sport what you put into it," Milkovich said. "Like my father always told me, 'if you put hard work into it, that's what you'll get out of it. It always comes back around and pays dividends. If you don't work hard, like anything else in life you shouldn't expect to get very far.' I still believe that's the biggest thing people can learn from wrestling."
After a well-decorated high school career, Milkovich came to Michigan State and his success blossomed. He was later joined by his younger brother, Pat, who would become a two-time NCAA champion and four-time NCAA finalist for the Spartans.
Among all of Tom Milkovich's honors and memories, his brother, Pat, is the main role in one of the biggest.
"I have a lot of favorite memories from my time at Michigan State, but my proudest moment was when my brother Pat and I went to the national tournament, and Pat won the national championship as a 17 year-old freshman. I was really proud of that because he didn't have any scholarship money and walked on after I introduced him to MSU," Tom Milkovich said.
Milkovich's individual and family success is something that he's certainly very proud of, but he also takes great pride in the performances that went on with everything.
"I tried my best to be a good example to my fellow teammates and fans at Michigan State. I conducted myself as hardworking and professional. More than anything, I had a great love of entertaining the people that came to watch me wrestle. It was important to me that people came into the gym to watch Michigan State wrestling. We put a good show on," Milkovich said.
He remembered many matches that there were so many fans there to see that "good show," that the fans and wrestlers were mixed together on the sidelines.
"When I wrestled there we had great fans and they packed the gymnasium for us which was what excited us, particularly me, the most," Milkovich said proudly. "I remember there were matches at the IM Center where it was so packed that people were sitting on the floor between our bench and the wrestling mat. We had to step over them to get to the mat. They were loving the action because they were right there, and we were wrestling Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, Michigan. I felt like it was my obligation to give them the very best I had."
Another one of Milkovich's fondest memories is one of, if not the saddest of his time at Michigan State, but also one that perhaps taught him the most, affecting him for the rest of life.
Earning some recognition of one of the rewards of his "big man on campus" status, Milkovich was classmates with "one of the prettiest girls on campus." After two years of being so shy to say anything more than 'hello' or 'good luck on your test,' to, Milkovich was approached by this same girl at lunch one day and said that she had a friend on her floor that was very anxious to meet him. Well, after meeting her friend, Milkovich started dating the friend, Candice Mikula. A year-and-a-half later, Tom and Candice were 'going steady,' and 'in love.'
One late summer Sunday afternoon, Milkovich was on his way back home to East Lansing from working a wrestling camp in Ohio, and 35 miles from East Lansing, witnessed a car accident on a fairly deserted highway, seeing the car go through the guard-rail on a bridge and overturning into a creek bed. Milkovich stopped and tried to help, coming to the driver first, who was unresponsive and wasn't showing any signs of life. He went over to the passenger, who was badly bleeding and barely breathing from the horrible accident, completely unrecognizable. Milkovich and another passing motorist carried her back up to the side of the road and began CPR and waited for help to arrive. An ambulance later came and took over treatment of the passenger, but she passed away in the back of the ambulance. A short time later Milkovich learned that the unrecognizable passenger was none other than Candice, the love of his life.
Milkovich later received a phone call from Mrs. Mikula, thanking him for everything he did in taking care of her daughter in her last moments of life. Milkovich was heart-broken, stunned, devastated and in shock, full of thoughts and emotions. He wondered why God had put him there, on that very road, at that very moment, for that accident, and take care of this passenger that was so badly mangled that he didn't recognize as the girl that he had fallen in love with. Milkovich used that emotion as fuel for not just his wrestling career, but everyday life, knowing that any moment could be the last.
"You never know what kind of things are going to happen to you when you go to school, or in life, and you have to be able to deal with it," Milkovich said. "No matter who you are in this world, there's going to be times where things don't go your way. Your life isn't always going to go the way you dream it up and you're going to have to make an adjustment."
Throughout the road of his ups and downs, Milkovich has made adjustments and gained success from those adjustments, but not without a support system of his coaches and teammates.
"My coaches, Grady Peninger and Doug Blubaugh, were so inspirational and motivational to me. I learned so much about not just wrestling, but also life from them," Milkovich said. "I'm especially grateful to all of my teammates and especially my brother Pat because we worked hand in hand when I went to school there."
Milkovich also was thankful and is forever grateful to innumerable teammates, fellow student-athletes and friends, fondly including his roommates and close friends, in a sort of "who's who" of Michigan State athletics at that time.
"Brad Van Pelt, Joe DeLamielleure and John Shinsky were my long-time roommates, and they all inspired me to strive for greatness," Milkovich said. "I was also close friends with basketball players Gary Ganakas and Brian Breslin, and baseball player Steve Garvey, and they were all so great to be around and learn from. I also attribute part of my success to my close friend and training partner, Conrad Calendar, who I convinced to come to Michigan State after transferring from Kent State."
Milkovich took what he learned from his roommates and fellow student-athletes in other sports that when paired with his hard work led to a well-decorated wrestling career, as well as a successful career after wrestling.
He started coaching wrestling right after his own wrestling career came to a close, and like his father, Milkovich became a successful wrestling head coach, and has coached on some level every year since leaving MSU after graduating in in 1974 with a business degree.
Milkovich's coaching stops included Cleveland State, then Auburn, before temporarily retiring from collegiate head coaching, then later resuming it at the high school level in several high schools across Ohio, then back to the collegiate ranks, and is currently head coach at Walsh Jesuit High School in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. He was a high school vocational education skills teacher, teaching at risk youth not just about school, but life after high school and beyond, retiring a few years ago.
Milkovich has left a lasting impression on former students and athletes that's he has coached and taught over time, passing along many of the messages he's learned from his father, continuing to get rewarded for all the hard work he's put in.
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