UNC wrestler T.J. Jaworsky ’95 won three consecutive NCAA titles. (Photo courtesy UNC Athletics)
UNC athletic teams have won 51 NCAA and 295 ACC championships. The Carolina Champions series asks Tar Heels to share memories from title-winning seasons.
When people think about national championships at Carolina, they’re quick to think about team sports. There’s of course Carolina women’s soccer’s record 22 national titles. There’s field hockey’s nine titles, including its recent run of five of the past seven. And of course, men’s basketball holds seven national championships (6 NCAA titles and the 1924 Helms Foundation title.)
In addition to these team titles, Carolina Athletics has earned more than 70 “individual” national championships across a wide array of sports. These individual titles take place in specific events – in the case of track & field and swimming & diving – or weight classes, in the case of wrestling. While the team aspect is still present in practices and preparation, student athletes who compete for individual titles have no one else to rely on other than themselves.
One of Carolina’s most decorated individual athletes is wrestler T.J. Jaworsky ’95, who captured three consecutive national championships at the 134-pound weight class in 1993, 1994, and 1995. During his three years at Carolina, where he transferred following one season at Oklahoma State, Jaworsky amassed a career record of 110-5, including a perfect 38-for-38 his senior year.
A member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, Jaworsky was named the ACC’s Wrestler of the Year in 1995 and was named to the ACC 50th Anniversary “Top 50 Male Athletes” list in 2003. Now residing in Ridgecrest, California where he is the President of Sydney Peak Stone, Jaworski took a few minutes to reminisce about his years as one of Carolina’s most dominant wrestlers.
Q: You started your collegiate career at Oklahoma State. What was it about North Carolina that was so appealing and made you want to transfer?
Jaworsky: First, the outstanding academics, and then, Coach [Bill] Lam was there coaching at the time, and he was a huge part in having me transfer over.
Q: You had a career record of 110-5 and three national championships. What do you remember most about those individual seasons?
Jaworsky: In ’93, I was kind of the underdog. The defending national champ, Troy Steiner from Iowa, cut down from the weight above me. He was a national champ at 142, I wrestled 134. He cut down into my weight class and I went from the number one seed to the number two-seed, and everybody thought that I was going to see him in the finals. He got upset by Cary Kolat from Penn State. I ended up having to wrestle Kolat in the finals and beat him.
In 1994, it was special because the nationals were at Carolina, and winning it at home and being in front of my home crowd. There’s nothing like that. In ’95, the Championship was held at Iowa, and I went undefeated that year. I was glad it was over, to have the three, it’s a lot of pressure, but my time at wrestling for Coach Lam was unbelievable. I learned a ton more than I could put into words from him.
Q: How is the mental preparation in an individual sport compared to a team sport?
Jaworsky: Wrestling is a team in the aspect that you have to have good workout partners, and the duals are one thing because you move guys around at different weights and that’s more of when the team comes in. When it’s the individual tournament, your teammates can’t really help you when you’re the only guy on the mat and there are 25,000 people watching.
There’s a lot of pressure and you need to go back to what you’ve been doing your entire life, how you’ve cut your weight, how hard you’ve worked out. The more completely you did those to 100%, the more confidence you had in yourself when you stepped on the mat.
I tried to outwork everybody in the room. I tried to come in early and do extra practice during the morning before classes, I would drill. You pretty much have to do that if you want to be an all-American national champion anyway. Those are the things that you just do. I just was fortunate enough to have a coach like Coach Lam. I had great workout partners, and I was fortunate not to get injured, a lot of people get hurt. I dealt with injury when I was trying to make the Olympic team. I know what that feels like to tear an ACL and have to come back from that, but I was just very fortunate to go through Carolina when I did and to have the nationals there and some of the best memories of my life.
Q:Looking back on your three national championships, do you have a favorite?
Jaworsky: In 1994, winning it at home, you can’t beat that. To be there wrestling at North Carolina in front of my home crowd in the Dean Dome, there was nothing like that.
Q: We’re coming up on 30 years since your time at Carolina… What do those championships mean to you?
Jaworsky: It’s something that no one could ever take away from you. It’s just a feeling of accomplishment that you did set your mind to it. Whether you win or lose, and I was fortunate to win, but what you learn from it is how you apply all that to the rest of your life. I run a company now, it’s a million-dollar company, where I have a stone quarry, and my work ethic from wrestling from what I learned at Carolina and growing up is what I apply to my work ethic in life and how I do my job now. That’s what you learn from it, and that’s how I apply it.
As told to Andrew Stilwell ’12. Support for UNC Athletics programs helps propel excellence on the field and beyond. Learn more.
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