Augustana University Athletics

Augustana's wrestling team finished in the top five nationally in Division II each of the four years Jeff Grier was in the lineup. Individually, he never experienced a losing season; he was 17-13 as a freshman, 24-6-2 as a sophomore, 14-3-1 as a junior, and 35-9-1 as a senior for an overall record of 90-31-4. He tallied 51 pins in his career with 21 of those in his senior season. During his senior year, the Vikings were ranked fourth in Division II and the team placed fourth in the national meet, the highest of any NCC team that year.

Jeff won the North Central Conference heavyweight wrestling championship three times – 1978, 1979, and 1980. In national competition, he finished fourth, second, and third and was named NCAA Division II All-America all three of those years. In addition, he was a two-time champion in both the All-Lutheran Tournament and the UNO Invitational; he won the championships in the Midland Takedown Tourney and Northwest Missouri Invitational in 1978 and the Augsburg Takedown Tourney and New Year's Classic Tourney in 1980.

Jeff wrote of two experiences during his sophomore season where Coach Paul Kendle became quite (!) angry with him, and how that motivated him to go on and win the match. One occurred at the Northwest Missouri Invitational; Jeff had become hungry during the slow progression of the competition, so he ate three candy bars and drank a quart of Gatorade. Suddenly, it was his turn to compete. Jeff said, "Midway through the match, I was tied 2-2 with an opponent I had pinned easily in a previous match. I couldn't get up to my hands and knees because of the junk food. Coach Kendle was screaming at me to get up. This made me take charge and I won 11-2." Later, at the NCAA-II tournament, his opponent was 6'8" and 300 pounds; the two were tied 5-5 at the end of regulation. Coach Kendle told Jeff to "…go out there and do it!" he pinned his man in 26 seconds in the overtime period.