Future generations of Oklahoma State wrestlers will train in the shadow of American wrestling royalty. With preliminary approvals now in place, the university’s planned facility in honor of two-time Olympic champion John Smith has cleared a major hurdle. The facility will significantly expand Cowboy Wrestling beyond Gallagher-Iba Arena, turning the building into an elite training ground. It will be an architectural tribute to Smith’s career and a true proving ground.

The project formally dedicates Oklahoma State’s next-generation wrestling facility to Smith, creating a permanent monument to his 40 years of excellence on the Stillwater campus.The whole facility will be 62,000 sq-ft with the practice gym set to be 16,000 sq-ft. The facility includes six full-size practice mats, specialist sports medicine suites, recovery plunge pools, and private locker rooms. 

Tiered seating above the mat area lets donors, coaches, and staff watch training sessions as they happen. The $16M project is moving forward with significant private donor commitments and alumni support. It runs along the north perimeter of Gallagher-Iba Arena and will connect directly to the existing athletic concourse. 

The OSU/A&M Board of Regents has approved the project, and the athletic department can select its architectural contracts and begin site prep. And it’s been named after a superstar in John Smith. His international resume was outstanding. Not just outstanding, he won six consecutive world-level titles from 1987 to 1992, plus two consecutive Olympic golds.  

He then went on to have a 33-year head coaching career at OSU, amassing 5 NCAA team titles and 33 individual national titles before retiring in 2024. That’s why AD Chad Weiberg believes Smith was the perfect person to name the facility after.

“There is not a more fitting tribute than to have his name on the building that the next generation of OSU wrestlers will walk into every day,” he stated.

The layout is designed to overcome the old arena’s long-standing spatial constraints. It will also bring strength, recovery, and daily mat operations under one roof for head coach David Taylor’s squad.

Monumental Naming Across American Olympic Lore

A full-blown, standalone, multimillion-dollar training complex dedicated to a living legend is rare and, indeed, prestigious. Naming an entire building after an Olympic and collegiate icon is the pinnacle of the sport’s heritage. 

Collegiate wrestling programs frequently name buildings after icons who built the program. That’s precisely what the University of Iowa did with the Dan Gable Wrestling Complex in Carver-Hawkeye Arena to honor Gable’s Olympic gold and 15 NCAA team titles.

Beyond the wrestling mat, American universities and sports organizations follow the same model in their attempt to honor their Olympic greats. The University of Oregon has done this for its track and field legend. They named the main facility and training facilities at Hayward Field after legendary coach Bill Bowerman. They also built huge monuments to distance runner Steve Prefontaine.

USA Track & Field and Ohio State University have both permanent buildings and facilities named after Olympic icon Jesse Owens. So student-athletes train in environments that are themselves a tribute to Olympic success.

These are functional monuments that serve a specific purpose far beyond nostalgia. Naming your premier training facilities after world champions creates an elite psychological and cultural recruitment environment. 

Now, young athletes who walk into a facility built to celebrate Olympic champions can associate their training with the world-champion standard. By doing this for John Smith, Oklahoma State is now in that exclusive group of programs that have enshrined an Olympic icon within the fabric of their campus