Rico Chiapparelli grew up in Baltimore, but he knew the best wrestlers went to Iowa.

That’s why he started coming to Iowa City long before he became a Hawkeye.

“Since I was a freshman in high school, I used to go to camps there in the summer,” says Chiapparelli, who is being inducted into the UI Athletics Hall of Fame this year. “So Iowa was the number one place I could dream about going to.”

Chiapparelli was a three-time All-American with the Hawkeyes, winning the NCAA championship at 177 pounds in 1987, finishing fourth in that weight class in 1986 and fifth in 1985. He was a three-time Big Ten individual champion and was part of the Hawkeyes’ national championship teams in 1983, 1985, and 1986, as well as four Big Ten championship teams.

“That was a great time for everybody, because those were great years for the program,” Chiapparelli says. “It was almost like being on a professional team, especially for that era.”

Chiapparelli knew the pressure that came with Iowa’s success.

“Everybody before us had won all the time,” he says. “So we were just keeping up with everything. And it was kind of like business as usual. Now, as you think back on it, it was just what we were expected to do.”

Chiapparelli remembers his first match in 1983, when Iowa wrestled at the Field House, and the business-like approach of team.

“I’m standing there with Jimmy Heffernan, another freshman, before the first dual, and no one had come up to us to say anything,” Chiapparelli says. “Right before the match, Heffernan said, ‘Isn’t anybody going to say anything to us?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know. It’s kind of weird. They just expect us to win. Nobody’s going to say anything.’ That’s just kind of the way it was.”

Chiapparelli appreciates the lessons he learned from coach Dan Gable.

“He contributed a lot to all phases of everybody’s life; not just the wrestling product, but also just the mindset,” Chiapparelli says. “The way that you’re supposed to hold yourself as an athlete, as a student, as a person. He’s very influential on everybody of that era.”

Chiapparelli had international success as well as a member of the U.S. national team from 1987-90. He was a champion of the U.S. Open in 1989 and was a gold medalist at the World Cup that year.

Today, Chiapparelli lives part of the year in Brazil and the rest of the year in Los Angeles. But he knows he’s always a part of Iowa history.

By John Bohnenkamp