Rex Peery (right) with two sons, Ed (center) and Hugh (left), after Ed’s 3rd NCAA Championship Win

Wrestling: Ed Peery

Our dad, Laurie Hooper, was an avid wrestling fan. When we lived in Maryland, he drove my brother, Ned, and me to watch many wrestling matches at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. There were others from time to time who came along for the ride: John Pierson, Bill Gamper, and our mom. A constant presence in those visits was the Navy Coach, Ed Peery.

Dad could only tell his version of the “Ed Peery Story” by referencing Peery’s father and older brother: “To me they represent the greatest wrestling dynasty among the NCAA champions, I have ever known. I have watched them over the years and I can still picture in my mind those matches between Ed Peery and Harmon Leslie….” and off he would drift into a mental videotape of the matches with Rex Peery in the corner.

Growing up in Pennsylvania in the ’50s and Maryland in the 60s, our family went to collegiate wrestling matches and tournaments close to home: Penn, Franklin & Marshall, Penn State and Lehigh (PA teams) and Univ. of Maryland, Johns Hopkins and Navy (MD teams). We even attended some summer wrestling camps in Granby, Virginia, Lock Haven, Bucknell, College Park and Annapolis. Our most memorable wrestling clinicians were recruited by Ed Peery and the Navy wrestlers, such as John Kent and Butch Keaser. The clinicians were earning our tax dollars as they trained the next generation of grapplers. To us high school wrestlers, hearing Keaser’s mat strategies and watching him demonstrate his moves was thrilling. He was both an EIWA and a NCAA champion. He would go on to be a future Olympian.

On the Navy campus, as we walked to the wrestling room, we scaled the stairs to the gymnasium. There were signs on the walls and even on the ceiling that told Navy stories. The rafters, for example, held a sign that read, “If You Can Read THIS, You are PINNED!” Another sign read, “If muscles were everything, a bull could catch a rabbit!” So true, so true.

When I coached a high school team in Maryland, our legendary former coach/referee, Raymond Oliver, was a Naval Academy graduate and wrestler. Ray had the stories and the scar tissue to prove it. Ray had been an officer at Iwo Jima in the Pacific theatre of World War II. He rarely talked about it. At the same time he was also a wonderful mentor and ally to me in a demanding sport with many critics and few reliable sources of coaching feedback. Ray always admired Ed Peery, who was the coach at the Naval Academy for 27 years. We took our high school wrestlers to Annapolis for Ed Peery’s summer Naval Academy camps. Ed’s son, Greg, attended a rival school and was a four year state champion wrestler. Greg did not wrestle in college, stopping the Perry family dynasty.

Edwin Peery (1935-2010)

Ed Peery, Univ of Pittsburgh, Class of ’57; Coach Naval Academy

Growing up a Peery was no small feat. Imagine that your dad was a three time NCAA wrestling champ, your brother was a three time NCAA wrestling champ, and the pressure was on you to “measure up.” Lucky for Ed Peery, he was an outstanding wrestler in his own right. In high school and college he matched his brother, Hugh, by winning two Pennsylvania state championships at Shaler High School. Ed’s only loss in a 48-1 career was by referee’s decision.

Ed went to Univ. of Pittsburgh for college and earned a win-loss record of 51-1 at Pitt. His only loss was 4-3 decision in the EIWA semis as a junior vs. Springfield’s Joe Alissi, up one weight at 130 lbs. But at the NCAAs, dropping to the 123 lb weight class, Peery surged late in the match, as he did to win all three finals matches. In 1955, he reversed and pinned his opponent with 0:30 seconds left. In ’56, he was taken down twice by Harmon Leslie (NCAA 2,2) but won, 7-5. In his final bout at home in Pittsburgh, Ed again trailed Harmon, 7-3 in the third period. But an escape, takedown and riding time forced the match into overtime. Such matches, if still tied, were voted on by the referees. Ed earned a unanimous referees’ decision in the deadlocked match, 7-7, 2-2.

After a tour of duty in the armed services, Peery’s next assignment was to be an instructor of Civil Engineering at the U.S. Naval Academy in 1960. He also was invited to serve as an assistant to the wrestling coach Ray Schwartz. The next year, Schwartz retired and Peery took over the role as the head wrestling coach at Navy. He served as head coach from 1961-1987, competing against his father (the Pitt head coach) in the EIWA through 1965. His Midshipmen wrestlers earned eight EIWA team championships, 48 individual titles, 28 All-American medals and his dual mark was 311-89-12. His top star was Lloyd “Butch” Keaser (1970-72), a 1973 World Champion, 1976 Olympic silver medalist. Peery was NWCA coach of the year in 1969 and a member of USA Wrestling’s national teaching staff.

After his coaching career, Ed Peery was the Academy’s highest ranking civilian employee, handling all recreation. He retired in Annapolis to do volunteer work with wife, Gretchen, also a volunteer assistant coach with local youth. Upon his passing in 2010, he was honored with a massive service in the Naval Academy Chapel. Peery is survived by his wife, Gretchen, a son, Greg, and a daughter, Martie. Ed & Gretchen also had a son, Neil, and a daughter, Laurie, who pre-deceased their father.

Rex Peery, the Dad

Rex Peery at Oklahoma State Univ. (1933-1935)

Rex Peery, OSU Class of ’35; Coach Univ. of Pittsburgh was a three-time champion for Oklahoma State (OSU) from 1933-1935. While Pitt’s head coach, he achieved an epic feat by coaching his two sons, Hugh and Ed, to NCAA titles in six straight years ,1952-1957.

Clara and Rex Peery had married in November, 1929, at ages of 19, which as luck would have it was a month after the Wall Street Crash and the start of the Great Depression. They got by and became parents with the arrival of Hugh during Rex’s freshman year at OSU. Their second son, Edwin, was born a few hours before Rex won his third NCAA wrestling title, confirmed by a matside telegram that arrived minutes before his final match. Rex Peery was an alternate on the 1936 Olympic team (Berlin), winner of National AAUs twice and lettered in baseball.  He was unbeaten in High School wrestling and never lost at OSU.

Rex Peery’s stellar coaching career ran 29 years, the first 13 years at Oklahoma high schools. When Rex Peery accepted the Univ. of Pittsburgh position as the Panther’s head wrestling coach in 1949, he knew he would have to move his family from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania. He bought a house in Baldwin, PA and he, his wife, and children made the move.

What he did not know was that Pittsburgh high schools were not like the high schools the Peery family was accustomed to in Oklahoma. Many of the high schools in Pittsburgh didn’t have wrestling teams, including Baldwin High School, the school his younger son, Ed, would be attending. So, the Peery family bought property and immediately began building a house in Shaler, PA, the school district with the strongest wrestling program in the Pittsburgh area at the time.

Rex coached the Pitt team from 1949-1965 and his son, Hugh, was Rex’s first Pitt All-American. Nine (9) of Rex Peery’s Panther wrestlers won an Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association (EIWA) record 13 NCAA titles and 11 reached 19 finals matches. He had 12 straight Top Ten teams; four straight Top Threes. His college dual meet record was 116-43-3; his wrestlers won 23 EIWA titles during the league’s greatest era. Rex then served in Pitt athletics as assistant professor until his retirement. He coached the USA team in the 1964 Olympics and served 12 years on the Olympic Wrestling Committee. He founded of USA Wrestling programs in PA and served on its national governing council, plus the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Board of Governors.

Ann Peery Ritter’s Reflections

“[Wrestling] is a priority event, a priority sport for us,” Ann Peery Ritter, Rex’s daughter and Hugh and Ed’s younger sister, said. “My dad was a wrestler and a coach, both for high school and for college, and my brother Hugh was a wrestler and also an assistant coach at the Naval Academy and Ed wrestled and was the head coach at the Naval Academy for a long time.”

Hugh was the only child who was missing from the move to Pittsburgh. He was finishing his senior year in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the family had resided prior to the move. Going into his senior year, Hugh was a two-time Oklahoma state wrestling champion and president of his senior class. But after his senior season that year, Hugh joined his family in Pittsburgh and his father at Pitt, marking the beginning of an era and a legacy that will now live on forever in Pitt’s Athletic Hall of Fame.

“I think their biggest accomplishment was that all three of them won three NCAA titles,” Peery Ritter said. “I honestly can’t tell you another family that is involved in wrestling that has done that and that was really an achievement.”

The ninth and final championship may have been the most special. It was the last NCAA Championship the Peery family would win and it was done in their hometown of Pittsburgh. To this day Peery Ritter believes the NCAA had the championships at Pitt that year because there was going to be a record that may never be reached again by a family.

To earn the win, Ed beat a wrestler from Oklahoma State in a referee’s decision after finishing with three seconds more riding time. Wrestling was always a family affair for the Peery’s. Rex started teaching his boys about the sport from a young age.

“One of my favorite pictures of my dad and my brother Hugh, my dad is in his Oklahoma State practice uniform and he’s kneeling down with my brother Hugh who would have maybe been a year old,” Ann Peery Ritter said. “And he’s showing Hugh a wrestling move at that time.”

Hugh Peery, Univ. of Pittsburgh, Class of ’54 was left behind halfway through high school in Tulsa when father Rex Peery became head coach in Pittsburgh. Hugh won two OK state interscholastic titles before enrolling at Pitt to re-join the family, just what the doctor ordered after Dad’s 0-10 season debut in 1949-50.  Hugh finished 56-1 from 1952-54 and matched Rex’s three NCAA titles, all at 115 lb weight class. He won his last 48 bouts without a loss. At three Nationals, his only close bout was a 6-5 semis win in 1954, where he won on riding time vs. Iowa’s Terry McCann. McCann went on to win Nationals the next two years and he became an Olympic champion in 1960. Hugh won gold at the 1951 Pan Am Games in Argentina and placed sixth in the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Finland.

Ed Peery synopsized: “Hugh was the technician [in the family]. Unlike me, he was slick and exacting with outstanding skills. Seemingly every move was planned and executed perfectly.” A half century after graduation, Hugh still thoroughly enjoyed practicing dentistry in his office home near Pittsburgh. In his spare time he enjoyed playing golf locally and in Hilton Head, SC.

And when she was old enough, Ann Peery Ritter also started getting involved by traveling to all of the matches she could. When her dad and brothers were on the road during their time at Pitt, Perry Ritter was with them. In fact, her dad, who was usually quiet at matches, used Peery Ritter to his advantage. She was known as the team’s “cheerleader” and all the athletes knew her voice. So, when someone started to get in trouble, her dad would ask her to yell directions to them.

“I would yell out what hold he should be using and that kind of thing,” Peery Ritter said. “So I was always part of every match that went on.” She even got to yell out instructions to her brothers on occasion, but what she yelled was never the same because their wrestling styles were so different. Hugh was more of an artist when it came to the sport. He would plan every move he was going to do beforehand order to win.

Ed Peery, on the other hand, was more of a “bull in a china cabinet” according to Ann Peery Ritter. His only plan going into a match was to win. He didn’t know how he was going to do it, but he knew he was going to win and that is all that mattered.

Their wrestling styles also reflected who they were as people. Hugh was the quiet studious one who accomplished his life goal of becoming a dentist when he graduated from Pitt’s dental school.

Ed Peery, Pitt 1956

Ed was the louder, more rambunctious brother of the two. But he also took his studies seriously, graduating from Pitt’s school of engineering with a degree in civil engineering.

Their father was a quiet man, who loved to be around people. “His hobby was building houses and he would build them for sale, to sell,” Peery Ritter said. “And we all had to work on the crews, no matter what we were doing, it was a family affair. And so we all worked together as a family as long as I can remember.”

Rex worked hard to build a wrestling team from scratch and his sons were two corner stones of the team’s success. If he were to see the team and program today, Ann Peery Ritter thinks he would be proud. She thinks her father and brothers would be even prouder to know the legacy they built will live on forever through their induction into Pitt’s Hall of Fame.

“It’s really quite an honor that will happen and they all worked hard to get that legacy, so that makes it even sweeter that Pitt is honoring them like this and that their name will always be there for people to see,” Peery Ritter said. “I think they all would have been excited and I think they all would have been very proud, but they also would have been very humble about it.”

Edwin Peery Obituary

EDWIN “ED” CLARK PEERY, 75, wrestling coach and professor at the U. S. Naval Academy, died on June 15, 2010 of pancreatic cancer at his home in West River, Maryland. With 311 wins over a 27-year coaching career, he was the winningest wrestling coach in Naval Academy history and a three-time NCAA individual champion. With his father and his brother, also three-time NCAA individual champions, Peery belonged to one of collegiate wrestling’s most heralded families.

A native of Stillwater, Oklahoma, Peery attended Shaler High School in Glen Shaw, Pennsylvania where he met Gretchen Miller, his future bride and wife of 55 years. He lettered in baseball, track, football, and wrestling, winning two Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association wrestling titles. Under his father, the wrestling coach at the University of Pittsburgh, he was a three-time NCAA champion. Peery was an alternate for the 1956 Olympic Freestyle Wrestling team. The Wrestling Hall of Fame declared Peery’s 1957 NCAA championship bout as one of the top ten matches in NCAA tournament history.

Following his graduation from the University of Pittsburgh with a B.S. in Civil Engineering in 1957, Peery served for two years as a 2nd Lt. in the U. S. Army. He returned to Pitt in 1959 as an instructor in Civil Engineering and assistant wrestling coach. Peery came to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1960 as an instructor in the Civil Engineering Department and an assistant to then wrestling coach Ray Schwartz. One year later he took the head coaching slot upon Schwartz’s retirement from active coaching. His 27-year record included 311 wins against 90 losses and 14 ties, a winning percentage of .766. He coached 48 EIWA individual champions and 28 NCAA All-Americans. Ed Peery was named NCAA coach of the year in 1968 and was twice named Eastern Wrestling Coach of the Year. He was inducted into the Amateur Wrestling Hall of Fame in 1980.

Peery also held a Master’s degree in personnel administration from George Washington University. Peery was promoted to the rank of professor in the Physical Education Department of the Naval Academy. Upon stepping down as wrestling coach in 1987, he served for the next 13 years as the Deputy Physical Education Officer, the highest civilian position in the department. He retired in 1999 from the Naval Academy after 40 years. In 1999, Peery provided the “Coach’s Tribute” at the farewell dinner for General Charles C. Krulak, Commandant of the Marine Corps.

After retirement, Peery remained active within both national and local wrestling communities. He was a volunteer coach at Annapolis High School, South River High School, and the Annapolis Area Christian School, the latter which established the “Ed Peery Invitational” in his honor. On January 18, 2010, InterMat was quoted as saying: “Ed Peery’s contributions to the sport go far beyond the Navy wrestling program. He is considered to be one of the pioneers in establishing and conducting large-scale summer wrestling camps. He helped launch the wrestling program at Annapolis Area Christian School, which hosts the annual Ed Peery Invitational, a high school wrestling tournament held in mid-December for the past decade. In early 2009, the Anne Arundel County Wrestling Coaches Association presented Ed Peery with the Allan Segree Service to Wrestling Award.”

Peery was also was active at Grace Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Davidsonville, Maryland. He served as chair to the building committee, leading the construction of a new church building in 2002. He served as an Elder, co-founded the church’s men’s bible study, and was a discussion leader for the Men’s Bible Study Fellowship of Annapolis, MD. Peery enjoyed woodworking, crabbing and spending time with his family.

Peery was the beloved husband of Gretchen Miller Peery; father of Martie Milliken of Annapolis, MD, Greg Peery of Merritt Island, FL and the late Laurie Jackson and Neil Peery; brother of Hugh Peery of Pittsburgh, PA, and Anne Peery Ritter of Pittsburgh, PA; also survived by eight grandchildren.