Inductees

Andy started wrestling at 14 in the New York Athletic Club’s Saturday morning program. At Stuyvesant HS, he was 2nd as a junior and senior in the New York City Championships and voted the school’s Athlete of the Year. Barth qualified for the Empire State Games in 1978 and 1979 on the Scholastic Team, in 1980 on the Greco-Roman Team, and in 1981 and 1984 on the Open Freestyle and Greco-Roman Teams.

He won the Greco title at 180 pounds in 1980, placed 4th in Greco in 1981, and then 2nd in Greco and 4th in Freestyle at 198 pounds in 1984. An unrecruited walk-on at Columbia College, Andy wrestled all four years for Coach Ron Russo, earning three varsity letters while the team won three league championships from 1980-82. He was named team co-captain as a senior, and designated Honorable Mention All-Ivy League in 1982. After graduating, he attended Columbia Business School and continued to wrestle for the New York Athletic Club, primarily for their nascent Greco-Roman team. In 1985, Barth won the New York State Championship at 198 pounds (90 kg.), won the Eastern AAU Championship, and placed 6th at the Andre Guerin Tournament in Reims, France.

He retired from competition in 1985, but continued his involvement in wrestling via significant contributions to the Ron Russo Endowment, providing a naming gift for the wrestling room, and endowing the head wrestling coach position at Columbia; it was the first endowment of a head coaching position in wrestling in the country. In 2012, Andy was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma, as an Outstanding American. Just weeks before that, he co-founded the Titan Mercury Wrestling Club with Wayne Boyd and Beat the Street-Los Angeles. The Club’s Men’s and Women’s Freestyle teams have won the last 5 U.S.

Open Championships, and Titan Mercury athletes had 6 of the 8 spots on the 2017 Men’s World Championship Team, earning 5 of its 6 medals. The 2018 Men’s team placed 2nd at the World Championships, in which Titan Mercury earned 7 of the 10 spots in the team, and contributing 5 of 7 medals for Team USA. In World Clubs Cup events 2014-17, Titan Mercury Wrestling Club were finalists each year and won the Championship Cup in 2016. In 2013, Barth was named Team Leader for the U.S. Men’s Olympic Freestyle Team for the 2016 Olympics. Andy also joined a band of heroes in forming the Committee to Preserve Olympic Wrestling, and they succeeded. He underwrote the bringing of 3 World Cup competitions to Los Angeles in 2014, 2015 and 2016, and he was honored as USA Wrestling Man of the Year in 2014. Andy now serves as an Ambassador for USA Wrestling and chairs a committee focused on the organization of our wrestling effort for the 2028 Olympics to be held in Los Angeles.