‘Wrestling is a safe sport – we’re going to make it safer’

Matthew Day

Staff

December 1, 2025

FOND DU LAC – Through LDR Headgear, Co-founder Larry Marchionda said he’s created the type of protection he wished he’d had in his wrestling career. 

The soon-to-be-83-year-old said when he began wrestling, “there was no such thing as headgear – it was not invented yet.” 

“They were just starting to create [headgear] in 1960 – somewhere around there,” he said, “and that was only to protect the wrestlers’ ears – not against head impact.” 

As much as he cherished his wrestling career, Marchionda said his injuries – as well as those sustained by wrestlers he later coached – inspired him to work toward protecting today’s wrestlers while bolstering the sport itself. 

Marchionda said the result of his efforts is LDR Headgear – a product line made with a patented, lightweight foam material capable of decreasing temporal and cranial impact by up to 60%, according to independent lab study. 

“Anytime you can reduce the impact for a wrestler, if they do have to hit their head, [it’s good],” he said. “[The head] is the most important part. I mean, the ears are important, but what’s in between the ears is the most important part.” 

Wrestlers and parents of wrestlers seem to agree, Marchionda said, as the popularity of LDR Headgear continues to “snowball” – the more wrestlers wearing it, the more people see it and seek it out. 

Marchionda said the headgear is now used in all 50 states, Canada and Europe, as interest in wrestling has surged in the past few years

He said the increase of women’s and girls’ teams is a key contributor to the boom, though it’s largely due to a growing sense of improved safety.

Marchionda said it’s “very rewarding” contributing to this development, allowing him to give back to the sport that’s given him so much and protect wrestlers of all ages. 

“I’ve had parents say, ‘If we didn’t have this headgear, my kid would not be wrestling,’” he said. “[They’ll say], ‘The only reason I’ll let my child wrestle is from knowing he or she is protected.’” 

A LDR in head-impact reduction 

Marchionda said LDR – pronounced “leader” – Headgear has redefined head protection for wrestlers with its 3D-molded ConTek foam and comfortable, form-fitted design. 

Per the company’s website (leaderheadgear.com), features of the products include: 

• Options for youth and adult sizes 
• A patented adjustable lace-locking system 
• Non-friction, cross-linked, shock-absorbing, abrasion-resistant material 
• Acoustically optimized ear protection
• A soft, ventilated chin cup 
• Optional extra rear padding 

Marchionda said he co-founded LDR Headgear with Dale Evans – president of EVCO Plastics in De Forest and, like Marchionda, a member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. 

The headgear, Marchionda said, is now on its fifth prototype. 

Regardless of the success of their company thus far, Marchionda said he and Evans continue to improve their products, constantly soliciting feedback from the wrestling community for suggestions. 

All third-party lab testing of the products, Marchionda said, is held to American Society for Testing and Materials standards – standards, which he said prove LDR Headgear is the safest on the market. 

Though the rigorous testing “costs us a lot of money,” Marchionda said he and Evans are so dedicated that they’ve forgone taking a salary to fund continued improvements.

“All the money we have been taking in goes into making the product better,” he said. 

Heads up 

Amid all the co-founders’ intentional efforts, Marchionda said “an unintended outcome from our headgear” arose.

“We’re finding that [when] young kids feel they have the protection on their front and top of their heads, [they] wrestle in a much better position,” he said. 

Specifically, Marchionda said the headgear helps wrestlers keep their heads upright. 

Coaches, he said, work very hard to impart the value of this positioning, which often requires wrestlers to overcome their instinctive posture on the mat. 

“When they make contact, they drop their head – it’s just a natural response,” he said.  

By keeping their heads up, Marchionda said wrestlers maintain not only better leverage and vision but safety as well.

“If you wrestle in a poor position, this is when disaster can happen,” he said. “Head injuries in wrestling usually come from having your head hit on the mat, having your head [down] when you take a shot on somebody’s hip or his knee and sometimes just getting snapped down to the mat if you’re not in a good position.”

Marchionda said he believes when wrestlers wear LDR Headgear, they simply feel safer and are more apt to hold their heads up. 

“When kids are wearing our headgear and they have that front-head protection, they’re wrestling with their heads up – they’re not dropping their head on the shot,” he said. “That’s a very important thing I’ve seen watching our kids when they wrestle with our headgear. They’re all keeping in good position.” 

A head(gear) start 

Marchionda said wrestling has enriched his life since his teens – the individual training and competition, the team-related accountability and the overall personal development, discipline and sense of respect – “benefits you can get from wrestling that you cannot get anywhere else.” 

Since his wrestling career began before the advent of ear protection, he said he experienced repeated instances of cauliflower ear – a condition wherein inflammation and blunt trauma to the ear causes fluid or blood to collect or clot internally, swelling the affected areas of the ear. 

After wrestling at and graduating from Penn Yan Academy in New York, Marchionda said he was recruited by Winona State University (WSU). 

There, Marchionda said his coach, Bob Gunner, suggested he wear an old pilot’s helmet to cover his ears – his first experience with wrestling protection.  

“Because I was always the one who was getting my ears smashed, [Gunner] used to always say, ‘Larry, someday you’ve got to make a headgear,’” he laughed. “And I’d say, ‘Yeah, right, coach.’ And now, here I am.” 

Marchionda said he became captain of the WSU wrestling team and was later inducted into the university’s Warrior Hall of Fame for athletics. 

“After college, I continued to try out for the 1968 Olympic Team,” he said. “I was the USA Regional Champion and qualified for the Final Olympic Trials in Ames, Iowa, where I did not make the team.” 

From there, Marchionda said he devoted the next 32 years to teaching physical education and coaching wrestling at Goodrich High School in Fond du Lac, leading his team to – among other successes – the Wisconsin State Championship in 1991. 

It was while teaching, he said, that he experienced the impact repeated head injuries can cause – concussions. 

Concerned, Marchionda said he sought medical consultation. 

He said the doctor’s examination revealed that after “all the years I wrestled, all of the small head impacts added up.” 

In 1996, Marchionda said he underwent a successful surgery to correct a condition called aqueduct stenosis, “where the aqueduct that drains fluid from the brain scar tissues closed from too many concussions.” 

When he became head wrestling coach at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Marchionda said he finally decided to bring Coach Gunner’s headgear suggestion to life. 

By this time, he said, the NCAA had strengthened its concussion protocol – but still had no proactive measures in place to prevent concussions from occurring.

Further inspired, he said he contacted Evans, who had been an assistant coach for the University of Wisconsin-Madison wrestling team. 

“I said, ‘Dale, this doesn’t make any sense – our kids are getting concussions, the [equipment is only] protecting ears,’” he said.  

Shortly after, Marchionda said he met with Evans at the EVCO Plastics factory, where they sat down together and drafted the initial headgear design – marking the start of the entire project.

Marchionda said Evans’ expertise in manufacturing and importing has been vital to LDR Headgear – “we wouldn’t be here now without him.” 

“We were going through about three years of experimenting, doing some prototypes and 3D printing,” he said. “Then we went into sales just before COVID-19… I think we started in 2018. We got through [the pandemic], and our sales have never had a red year or an even month since then. Everything has been growing and growing.” 

More for the mat 

Marchionda said a new partnership with Resilite wrestling mats is set to help LDR Headgear grow even more. 

The Pennsylvania-based company, he said, is “one of the largest wrestling mat makers in the country.” 

“Their new motto is going to be ‘Protecting wrestlers from their head to the floor,’” he said, noting that Resilite will sell the headgear branded as LDR. 

With the company essentially run by him and Evans – in their 80s and 70s, respectively – Marchionda said they have to consider the future of LDR Headgear. 

He said “the potential is immense” for their patented technology, which they have already applied to protective headbands for soccer players as well as senior citizens. 

“We have a couple of companies that are interested in buying us, and that would be a great opportunity for someone,” he said. “However, we’re very concerned about whoever does buy us – that they have the same care about wrestling and wrestlers that we do.” 

Marchionda said neither he nor Evans is concerned with earning money from LDR, so much as they’re aiming to make an impact on wrestling by – so to speak – reducing impact in wrestling. 

“Wrestling gave me a wonderful life,” he said. “Now, it’s time for us to give back, and this is one way.” 

Marchionda said he envisions generations of wrestlers learning valuable wisdom from the sport and going on to contribute to society – but it’s only possible if they’re well protected on the mat.  

“Wrestling is a safe sport,” he said, “but we’re going to make it safer.”