1972 Canadian Olympic Coach: Kurt Boese

Kurt Boese was born in Bremen, Germany where he began wrestling at the age of 10. In 1953 Boese began his wrestling career in Canada where he would flourish as one of Canada's top wrestlers.

In his first year of Canadian completion Boese placed second in both the Ontario and Canadian Championships. He was second in the Ontario Championship again in 1955.

Boese's active wrestling career continued, earning five Canadian championship titles between 1958 and 1963. He represented Canada in the 1960 Olympic Games, the 1962 Commonwealth Games, where he won a bronze medal, and the 1963 Pan American Games where he also captured a bronze.

Boese's coaching career started as soon as he arrived in Canada. For many years he was a coach at the Kitchener YMCA, leading his teams and many individual wrestlers to numerous championships. He was appointed coach of the Ontario Wrestling team for the first Canada Winter Games in 1967, which claimed top spot.

In 1969 Boese began his coaching career at the University of Waterloo. Of the 12 university teams competing for the Ontario university championship at the time, Boese guided the Warriors to three gold medals, one silver medal, and two bronze medals over a span of nine years.

Boese's outstanding qualifications led him to be selected as coach of Canada's Olympic team in 1972 where he coached my father.  It wasn’t the first time they had met; Kurt coached my Dad at the 1967 Canada Winter Games.

I spoke with Kurt about his memories of my father at the 1972 Olympic Games and he was able to tell me about the pep-talk he had in the corner just before Dad wrestled Shizuo Yada of Japan.  Kurt talked about Ivan Yarygin the Soviet Monster that my father faced in the second round of competition.  What a wonderful chat!

It has been adventure talking to some of these Canadian wrestling legends, hopefully I will meet more this weekend at the Harry Geris Memorial Women’s Wrestling Duals.