Olympic wrestling champion to host clinic at Burgettstown
Associated Press
By Jonathan Guth
For the Observer-Reporter
newsroom@observer-reporter.com
Not too many wrestlers, past or present, can claim they defeated Spencer Lee.
Actually, in freestyle competition at the senior level, there is only one.
Japan’s Rei Higuchi earned a 4-2 decision over the 2017 Franklin Regional graduate to win the gold medal in the 57-kilogram weight class at the 2024 Olympic Summer Games in Paris, France.
Lee will go down in history as one of the most dominant wrestlers in the state of Pennsylvania with three state championships and a career record of 144-1. He followed up his high school career with a stellar career at Iowa, where he won three national titles before shifting his attention solely to freestyle wrestling.
Higuchi’s victory over Lee is not the only tie-in with Southwestern Pennsylvania, as the soon-to-be 29-year-old will be making the nearly 14-hour flight to Pittsburgh International Airport before heading to Burgettstown High School to host a clinic on Jan. 26.
Higuchi’s trip to the Washington County school would most-likely not be possible without the help of Burgettstown assistant wrestling coach Sanshiro “Sunny” Abe, who as a native of Japan, has ties to the national team and its coaching staff.
“My brother (Louie) and I knew Sunny, and he got involved with our program three years ago,” said Burgettstown head coach Joey Vigliotti. “Sunny wrestled at Penn State, and he was involved with some bigger high school programs over the past few years, but he decided to come and help us out, and he has been a blessing at Burgettstown.
“The one thing about Sunny, he is not a big-headed guy and very respectful, and he teaches that to our kids. It is a totally different culture in Japan, but Sunny does great with our kids.”
Abe won an NCAA championship in 1996 while competing for the Nittany Lions before representing his country in the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Ga.
Abe will assist with the language barrier while Heguchi is demonstrating technique.
“Sunny will be there to help out with translation, but when it comes down to it, wrestling is still wrestling, and having a guy like this come in and work with not only high school kids, but college and elementary wrestlers is great, and it puts Western Pennsylvania wrestling on the map,” Vigliotti said. “We are just so grateful to have Sunny here to help put this all together. I may be dating myself when I say this, but having a guy like Rei Higuchi to come in and do a clinic is like having Rogers Clemens being your baseball coach.
“The interest has been from all over the place. We have heard from people from Philadelphia, Ohio and West Virginia. We also decided to allow open this up for college athletes in the afternoon session. We asked Sunny about it and he was on board.”
Higuchi’s Olympic victory is not his only international championship, as he won a world title in 2022 and an under-23 world championship in 2018. Higuchi was the silver medalist at the 2016 Summer Olympics and the 2023 World Championships. He won a gold medal at the Asian Championships in 2022.
All sessions will be held at the Burgettstown High School Gymnasium. The youth session begins at 9 a.m. and will run till 11:30 a.m. The junior high, high school and college session is scheduled to run from 12:30 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Vigliotti said some time between sessions will be made available for the wrestlers and spectators to have a chance to meet Higuchi.
The cost is $100 per wrestler, and those interested in attending the clinic must pre-register. The spectators will pay a cash-only fee of $20 at the door.
The link to register is https://form.jotform.com/250007749849062 and if anyone has any issues with the form, they are asked to contact Vigliotti via email at jvigliotti@burgettstown.k12.pa.us or phone at 724-255-9555.