MOORHEAD, Minn. -- Fifty years ago this spring, a small band of Dragons headed west to the Black Hills of South Dakota, in search of championship gold at the 1964 National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) Wrestling Championships. It was yet another journey for the road-weary Dragons, and after a perfect 10-0-0 dual meet season and runner-up finish in the rugged Northern Intercollegiate Conference, it seemed almost unfair to ask this crew to handle another arduous road trip, but what's a few miles more for a willing cast of characters, most who came half-way across the country in search of a wrestling utopia? 
The 500-mile trip was taxing enough, and the awaiting accommodations were Spartan at best, but the Dragons weren't about to complain. To Frank Mosier, a native of Washington, Penn., it was a glorious opportunity. "We took a couple of red school station wagons and stayed at a little hotel in Deadwood, but we didn't complain; we were after a championship."

While Lock Haven State (PA) was largely viewed as the pre-tournament favorite, there were several clubs with serious championship dreams, including some certified Eastern strongholds. Moorhead State College, after a ninth place finish at the 1963 NAIA nationals, was well positioned to make some serious noise, too, but the Dragons didn't talk much about it during the season.

MSC head coach Bill Garland, however, was fully confident his club could make a deep championship run and was more than eager to spread the Dragon gospel.

"Bill kept talking about it," said Mosier. "We knew we had the horsepower, but we also knew a lot of the Pennsylvania schools would be there, and they had a lot of champions. We knew we were good; I doubt if there were a handful of schools in the entire world that could have beaten us."Garland would enroll seven wrestlers in the national field, with All-Americans at bookends of the Dragon lineup. Pennsylvania import Arthur "Bucky" Maughan was a two-time national champ at 123 pounds and crowned a marvelous junior season a year earlier by winning the NCAA Division I 115-pound title in 1963.
 
Jim Dreitzler, a two-time sectional champion from Ithaca, New York and a transfer from Iowa State, had ample promise at 130 pounds. Raphael Gonshorowski of Greenbush, the only Minnesotan to crack the starting lineup, would enter at 137. Don Pate, a Bloomington, Ind. native and transfer from the University of Indiana, was solid at 147. A seasoned Navy veteran and star runningback with the football Dragons, Pate won two matches at the 1963 NCAA Division I showdown as a junior.
 
Mosier, still rehabbing from a freak injury that cost him much of his sophomore season, would wrestle at 167. Bo Henry, a bone-crushing linebacker from Bloomington, Ind. and football captain at MSC, would fill the 177 pound-class with Waukegan, Ill. native Bob Billberg, a trusty anchor at heavyweight.
 
Maughan, Dreitzler, Gonshorowski, Mosier and Billberg had fashioned a combined 40-0 dual meet record and were anxious for the next step. It was an all-star team of sorts, chock full of confidence and promise, but would it be enough to bring the national title to the Red River Valley for a first time?
 
*                                      *

The Dragons' 1963-64 roster was filled with eager applicants from across the country, including 16 from Pennsylvania and six from New York. Years later, Pate still marvels at how they all came together at Moorhead State. "Bucky and I were freshmen on the Indiana University wrestling team, and Bo and I had wrestled on the Bloomington High School State Championship team. We also wrestled against Billberg when we were seniors."
"At the end of our freshman year, Indiana got put on probation for illegal recruiting, so many of the athletes wanted to transfer. Bill Garland, who was from Bloomington and went to Indiana, heard that I and Ronnie Hutcherson, a sophomore at IU who placed third at 130 (pounds) in the NCAA (I), wanted to transfer. I called coach Garland, and he invited us to visit MSC; Bo just got out of the Navy so I invited him to come along, too. We had no car, so we hitchhiked from Bloomington to Moorhead.  Bo and I stayed, but Ron's wife-to-be talked him out of the move.

"During Christmas break, I went back to Bloomington to visit family and went into a pizza shop. There was Bucky, working behind the counter. He had quit the team and, I think, dropped out of school. I told him about MS and that I would have Garland contact him about transferring spring quarter; he packed his toothbrush and showed up in Moorhead.

"That same winter, Moorhead State was playing NDSU in basketball at NDSU. Not having money for a ticket, I found an open door in the basement and walked into the weight room. One guy was working out---Bob Billberg. He was from Waukegan and wrestled for the Bison, but was very unhappy with the coach and school. Right on cue, I told him I was from Bloomington and had transferred to Moorhead State from IU. I also told him coach Garland was building a strong team and he should visit and talk to him. He did, and he came."Gonshorowski placed second at 127 pounds for tiny Greenbush High School in the one-class Minnesota State High School Tournament as a senior in 1962. He attracted some college attention, especially from Luther College in Decorah, IA, but signed on at Moorhead State instead.
 
"Garland promised me a half-scholarship, but I didn't get it right away," said Gonshorowski. "The first year he said he had recruited Buddy Starks, a state champion from Michigan, and Bobby Evans from New York and needed the money for them. The next year I had some academic problems and went on probation so I didn't get the scholarship, but I worked hard, got my average up and got the scholarship. Funny thing is, I think I have donated more money over the years than my scholarship."

Maughan remembered Mosier from their Pennsylvania prep days and was delighted to join up with him again in Moorhead. He admits the unlucky Mosier may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time (in high school), and qualifying for the state championships was a sizeable challenge. "Back then you had to win the sectional first, go to a regional qualifier and take first in the region. They only took four guys to state from 600 some wrestlers.

"Frank might have been the second best wrestler in the state, but he happened to be in the wrong section. We had a three-time state champion, and Frank didn't get out of the sectionals, and so he wasn't (highly) recruited," said Maughan.
 
*                                       *

It did not begin well for the Dragons at the national showdown, and Gonshorowski still remembers the first hurdle.
 "When we got there, Jim Dreitzler had chicken pox or measles," Gonshorowski said. "We weren't sure, but we didn't know if they were going to let him wrestle. Fortunately, they did, and he became a national champion."
 
There was also the lingering disappointment of a runnerup finish at the recent NIC Championships. "We didn't win the conference. In fact, the only conference champs were Billberg and myself; Bucky didn't get to wrestle."
 
It all started off so wrong at the NAIA Nationals when Maughan, a two-time defending champ, was pinned by Fred Powell of Lock Haven State in the 123-pound class. It was Maughan's only loss of the season and ended a 68-match win streak.
 
"I thought I had him pinned three times in the first period," Maughan said of his longtime rival. "I wrestled him three times in the finals, and he was a division one champion, too."
 
"That sent a jolt through the whole team, and made it very tight," said Mosier. "They had wrestled several times before, but Powell caught Bucky just right and pinned him. We knew Lock Haven had three wrestlers left and we had three left, and all three of our wrestlers won."
 
Fortunately, there were plenty of fellow Dragons to pick Maughan up, and three left as national champs, including Dreitzler (130), Mosier (167) and Billberg (HWT). Maughan was second at 123 while Gonshorowski (5th, 137) and Don Pate (6th, 147) collected All-American certificates as well.
 
Arthur "Bucky" Maughan was a two-time NAIA national champion at Minnesota State Moorhead in 1962 and 1963 and also claimed the 1963 NCAA Division I championship at 115 pounds. He became the first and only Dragon to win a Division I individual title and lifted Moorhead State into a tie for ninth place with the United States Naval Academy. Maughan later coached North Dakota State to four NCAA Division II national championships, six national runner-up finishes and a record of 467-157-13. During the Division II era, he produced 30 NCAA Division II individual national champions. An English major at MSC, Maughan has been inducted into the National Wrestling, Pennsylvania High School Wrestling, NAIA Wrestling, NCAA Division II Wrestling, NSIC and Dragon Halls of Fame. A native of Canonsburg, Pa., Maughan was a Pennsylvania state champion during his high school career and clearly the most famous son of Canonsburg, especially if you discount local crooners Perry Como and Bobby Vinton. 
 
Once again, the heavy lifting was left to Billberg. "All the pressure was on Bob to win, and he pulled it off," said Mosier. "He was always in control, but in a championship match anything can happen."
 
Billberg's victory in the final match lifted MSC into first place and its first national title. Moorhead State shaded powerful Lock Haven State 63-60 for the title while four other colleges from wrestling-rich Pennsylvania secured spots in the top 10, including Indiana State of Pennsylvania (third) Bloomsburg (fourth), Waynesburg (sixth) and East Stroudsburg (seventh).
 
A two-time NAIA individual heavyweight champion and two-time runnerup at the NCAA Division I Championships, Billberg toppled some of the giants of college wrestling. He handed Syracuse All-American and reigning national champ Jim Nance his first collegiate loss after 78 consecutive victories before falling to Joe James of Oklahoma State in a NCAA I championship match televised on ABC WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS in 1964. Billberg also played fullback for the Dragons. His sparkling collegiate resume also included a pin of NCAA Division I champion and future NFL Hall of Famer Curley Culp. Billberg dispatched of the Arizona State All-American in just 16 seconds at the Oklahoma State Quadrangular at Stillwater, Okla. A successful high school wrestling coach at Libertyville, IL, Billberg died shortly after attending the 40th reunion of the Dragons' championship season in 2004.
 
Gonshorowski was disappointed with a fifth place individual finish, but winning the team title eased any frustration. He still remembers that championship feeling and having a front row seat to witness wrestling immortality.
 
"Bill always had the personnel (to win), and you had to learn how to compete or you didn't survive," said Gonshorowski.
 
"It was exciting, you bet it was; I was disappointed that I didn't do well, but it came down to the last match. I saw a lot of great wrestlers, including (Olympians) Gray Simons of Lock Haven and Dan Gable of Iowa State, but Bucky was number one in my book," he said. "He had the talent. Billberg was very strong and very quick. He could hit them right in the leg, and I saw him when he pinned Curly Culp."
 
For Mosier, just returning to the national tournament was something of a minor victory itself.
 
"I fell off the giant swing in Roy Domek's gymnastics class in October and broke my jaw. I had it wired shut for four weeks, at least that made it easy to make weight. I still had some problems with it at nationals, and in the championship match, the guy from St. Thomas (MN) threw a cross face across my jaw and, boy, did that hurt. They stopped the match for a while, but I kept on and beat him."
 
"I wasn't quite sure what happened. I couldn't believe that we had just won a national championship, and that I had won an (individual) championship. It was a big night, and the thrill of winning was amazing."
 
For Maughan it was more the validation of a job well done.
 
"We didn't go crazy or anything like that. We were happy that we had all done our jobs. Wrestlers are different from other athletes; everyone was so worried that they had to win their match. We all thought, 'I have to win,' and when everybody does their job it all falls together. We didn't talk about winning the (team) championship; we just thought about winning (our match). When everybody does that and is on the same page, that's when you get your championships.
 
"When I was coaching, I told our wrestlers to worry about yourself and get yourself ready. If everyone buys into that, we would have a good year."
 
For Garland, it marked the highwater mark of his first six years at Moorhead State, and the onetime Marine did not try to mask his enjoyment. "I'm proud as I can be of the way our wrestlers came through in the tournament, and of course, being named Coach of the Year was a great thrill. We were disappointed that Bucky had to end a fine college career with a loss," said Garland. The boy who beat him, Fred Powell of Lock Haven, lost to Bucky in the finals both last year and in 1962."
 
For Pate and his old Dragon pals, the cheers and memories of yesterday still resonate. "I feel very fortunate to have been a part of Moorhead State's athletic history," Pate said. "I owe a lot to coach Garland, my teammates and the school, for any or all, of the successes and achievements I have experienced since the 1960s. What a great group of guys; we had a lot of fun. We played hard, worked hard and cared about each other, and coach Garland did an unbelievable job of keeping us together and headed in the right direction.  Surely, he deserves a tremendous amount of credit for our success—a National Championship—not bad!"