Before there were national championship banners, before Division I opponents learned to recognize Bakersfield on sight, the Cal State Bakersfield wrestlers were simply looking for a place to practice. They bounced from the YMCA to whatever campus space they could find. In a science room, mats went up against the walls so no one would get hurt. There was little money, limited support and no established tradition to inherit. Vicci Brown Snyder, who helped Head Coach Joe Seay's teams with everything from statistics to travel arrangements, had a fitting description: "They were nomads."

What the Roadrunners did have was Seay, a coach whose belief in what Cal State Bakersfield wrestling could become seemed to arrive fully formed. Richard "Dick" Molina first saw Seay walking across the South High campus in a suit, tie, and glasses. "He looked like Clark Kent," Molina remembered. "But then when he got in the wrestling room, we definitely saw Superman."

Seay was the architect, recruiter, standard-setter and, often, another wrestler in the room. On weekends, Molina said, he hauled his athletes across California for freestyle and Greco-Roman tournaments and competed alongside them. The program was only beginning, but Seay never sold it as a modest building project. His mission was to win a national championship, and the athletes who came to CSUB came with that understanding.

The focus was unmistakable, but so was Seay's magnetism. His close friend Mike Stricker joked that Seay could have made a fortune selling real estate, cars, or insurance because of his smile and natural ability to win people over. When CSUB's Athletic Director asked Stricker about hiring Seay, Stricker offered a warning that sounded more like a promise:

Many of the `Runners on the first CSUB teams in the 1970s were local products, shaped by a Bakersfield wrestling culture that could fill high school gyms to standing room only. Others arrived from outside the area and were absorbed immediately. "There were a lot of Bakersfield people on that team, so there was a lot of camaraderie," wrestler Dennis Champion said. "The people who came from out of town, they were accepted right away and they just fit right in."

Inside that shared purpose was a roster of distinct personalities. Snyder remembered David East as quiet and unfailingly kind, Bill Van Worth as a "big gentle giant" with a humor often delivered under his breath, and Dan Houtchens as unpredictable until competition began. Then, she said, "he turned into a monster on the mat." The personalities did not have to match. The commitment did.

Their common language was work. Practice began at 3 p.m., but Snyder remembered wrestlers arriving at 1:15 to get started. They trained on weekends and looked for ways to do more than required. Some held jobs. Some had families. Their days moved, as Molina recalled, "nonstop, go, go, go," always with the same destination in mind.

That intensity could turn the wrestling room into a collection of private wars. Molina joked that, as the smallest wrestler there, he got his "butt kicked by everybody" – and he became better because of it. Yet the combat stopped when practice did. Snyder remembered teammates who "hated each other on the mat" sitting together afterward at Pizzaville. Champion recalled gatherings at his home, where guitars and pans became instruments to sing along to Neil Young, Kenny Loggins, and many other soft rock greats of the era. When rain forced training indoors, they invented "Russian Basketball," a game with one reliable rule: if you held the ball, you were going down.

That mixture of edge and affection produced something extraordinary in 1975-76. CSUB went 18-3 in dual competition and defeated Division I programs California, Arizona, Oregon, Stanford, and UCLA. The `Runners were a young program, but they were already beating established names across the West.

At the 1976 NCAA Division II Championships, the vision Seay had drilled from the beginning became real. Dan Houtchens won the national title at 150 pounds, Mike Bull captured the championship at 190, and heavyweight Bill Van Worth gave CSUB a third individual crown. Molina and Florencio Rocha also placed, giving the Roadrunners five All-Americans and the depth needed to claim the team title.

Champion recalled his thoughts when the moment finally set in that the squad had accomplished its mission: "We were just this little school from Bakersfield. It was a pretty new program, all in all, and all the sudden they’re national champions."

It was the first national championship won by any team in CSUB Athletics history, delivered in just the fourth year of the wrestling program's existence. The achievement changed how others saw the `Runners. Champion remembered entering gyms after the title and watching people turn toward them: "Hey, there's Bakersfield!" The attention was new, but their response was not. "We just went and wrestled," he said.

The championship also proved to be a beginning, not a summit. CSUB went on to win seven NCAA Division II titles in an eight-year span, finishing second in the only season it did not claim Gold. Beginning in 1977, the `Runners also tested themselves at the NCAA Division I Championships, where they produced four Top 10 finishes in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The dynasty that followed rested on the standard established by the team that broke through first.

For all the stories about Seay's relentless focus, those who knew him return just as often to the way he cared for his wrestlers. Champion called him a “taskmaster” whose workouts were never easy, but also a coach who knew every athlete's background. Molina said Seay "had my back" and was family. Snyder said he never asked the wrestlers to do something he would not do himself. Even the humble details told the story of total commitment: in the program's early years, Seay's wife washed the practice gear while he kept building.

The wrestlers carried their bond beyond the season and far beyond their college years. Snyder still thinks of the phone calls that came from former team members after her husband died, each asking what they could do. "They were family," she said. "They will always be family." That is why the Hall of Fame honor feels less like the recognition of separate careers than the reunion of people who built something together.

On Sept. 26, the 1975-76 team and the late Joe Seay will enter the CSUB Athletics Hall of Fame together as members of its second class. For the wrestlers, the pairing is essential. "The most important thing is that Joe goes in," Champion said. "He built the program, kept it going, and he loved us all. It was an honor to wrestle for him."

“Joe was a great man,” recalled Fred McAtee, who wrestled for Seay in the early 70s and eventually became such close friends that Seay was the best man in his wedding. “I have a lot of respect for him. He was always there for his wrestlers and for me. I was kinda the weak guy out, and he kept pushing me and pushing me…He was my idol. I had a father, but I think he was a father to a lot of us in a different way.”

Molina takes pride in what that first championship set in motion. "We got this thing kick started," he said. "This team really kick started it, and then it just got better and better and better." Snyder is looking forward to gathering again, visiting and telling stories - "and probably lie a lot about what they did, but that's okay because that's what they do." Half a century later, the stories may grow in the retelling. The record needs no embellishment: from borrowed rooms and mats against science-room walls, they built the first national championship team in CSUB history.