By Rich Chrampanis
Nearly a year and a half after Anthony Knox made history as only the fifth New Jersey four-time state wrestling champion, the NJSIAA stripped the St. John Vianney graduate of his final high school triumph.
The organization upheld its initial ruling disqualifying Knox from competing following an altercation in the stands during the District 25 tournament in 2025. It is believed to be the first time the NJSIAA has taken away a wrestling state title from an athlete.
The NJSIAA’s Controversies Committee voted 8-0 July 1 to revoke Knox’s Region 7 and subsequent state title. The committee sent its decision to Mercer County Judge Patrick J. Bartels ahead of a July 29 hearing in which New Jersey’s athletic organization seeks a dismissal of a civil case filed by Knox’s attorney Patrick J. Jennings.
The NJSIAA denied a request for comment, referring to the public document posted to the court docket.
“We do not come to this conclusion lightly and understand that some may disagree with our revocation of the title won by Knox. However, interscholastic sports are designed to do much more than support student athletic achievement. NJSIAA Rules reflect the fundamental goals of school athletics in supporting personal learning and growth,” the ruling stated. The committee added that high school athletics is “just as much about fostering teamwork, leadership, and resilience as it is about winning titles,” since those lessons carry into “each student’s academic and personal life.” Athletics, the committee wrote, “teach sportsmanship, cooperation, and respect for others,” and “Knox did not demonstrate these qualities at the tournament on February 22, 2025.”
How it Started
In February 2025, Collingswood High School hosted a 10-team District 25 wrestling tournament, the first of three rounds (district, region, finals) in the NJSIAA State Individual Wrestling Championships. Knox won the District 25 title at 126 pounds in dominating fashion.
But as the 190-pound championship match wrapped up, a fight broke out in the section of the bleachers reserved for West Deptford fans and spilled onto the gym floor.
Anthony Knox Sr., Knox’s father, initially went into the stands to confront fans; his son followed and both were charged with simple assault 11 days later. The NJSIAA disqualified Knox from the state wrestling tournament.
On Feb. 26, 2025, the family filed suit against the NJSIAA in Superior Court, Chancery Division, Mercer County. Two days later, the court granted an order to show cause, finding the NJSIAA may not have provided Knox sufficient due process before disqualifying him, and barred the NJSIAA, St. John Vianney, and Collingswood from keeping him out of competition. The NJSIAA moved to stay that ruling while it appealed, but on March 5, 2025, the court denied the stay, clearing the way for Knox to compete in the Region 7 tournament, which he won, and then the state championship, where he took the 126-pound title with an 18-4 win over Bergen Catholic’s Nathan Braun.
Knox won 128 straight matches and finished with a 144-1 career mark in high school.
“You know, it’s hard when there’s thousands of people hating on you at one time,” Knox Jr. said after winning the state title. “There’s not many people that could say they’re the most hated person in their state at that time. I felt like I could say that, you know what I mean? So it’s not easy. It’s emotional. It’s hard. But, you know, we’re resilient. We push through that.”
NJSIAA Moves to Formal Hearing
Over a year later, on April 30, 2026, the NJSIAA formally noticed a hearing for Thursday, May 28, at its Robbinsville headquarters, informing Knox Jr. and St. John Vianney principal Margaret Kane that the Controversies Committee would determine the answers to three questions: Whether Knox committed unsportsmanlike and flagrant misconduct; whether he violated the rule against leaving the bench area during an altercation; and whether his Region 7 and state titles should be revoked. The notice guaranteed Knox Jr. the right to counsel, the right to call and cross-examine witnesses, and sworn testimony, with the hearing recorded by a certified shorthand reporter.
Knox Jr. was personally served with notice of the May 28 hearing, per a process server’s affidavit and an accompanying photograph. Neither Knox Jr. nor his legal team attended that hearing.
The nine-member Controversies Committee, consisting of athletic directors, principals and superintendents from around the state, heard roughly two hours of sworn testimony, including from Collingswood athletic director Colleen Harte, who ran the tournament that day.
Harte testified that, at the time of the fight, Knox Jr. “was already done, undressed, already on the sideline cheering on his team,” and that she watched him “run up into the stands from the mat.” She also saw Knox Sr. run into the stands separately. “He ran down the stands, across, behind, and then back up into the stands.”
Asked directly whether anything in the tournament’s atmosphere foreshadowed trouble, Harte said no – the day had actually been unusually calm. “It was actually pretty quiet. It was pretty smooth. It was quick,” she testified, adding that six security personnel were stationed around the gym and “heard nothing” out of the ordinary before the fight. St. John Vianney assistant athletic director Patrick Smith corroborated that account in a written statement, noting only that “words and gestures (were) exchanged throughout the tournament but nothing that raised to the point of intervention.”
Knox Jr.’s attorney, John Grey, had argued in a Feb. 24, 2025, letter that Collingswood bore responsibility for failing to control its crowd, and separately that the “bench rule” didn’t apply since Knox had already finished competing and there was no literal bench in a tournament setting. The committee rejected both arguments, finding the facts didn’t support a hostile crowd environment, and that the bench rule’s language was intentionally written to apply broadly across sports, not just to teams with a physical bench.
The committee ruled 8-0 on all three questions. It found Knox Jr. violated the NJSIAA’s sportsmanship policy by physically assaulting a minor in the stands, and separately violated the bench rule by leaving the team area during the altercation. The committee also rejected the argument that he’d left to protect his parents, noting the video evidence didn’t support that he was aiding either one.
“The evidence unmistakably demonstrates Knox left the bench area and ascended up into the spectator stands, several rows high in the gymnasium,” the committee wrote, adding that it didn’t matter that Knox Jr.’s individual match was finished, since student athletes are expected to conduct themselves as competitors “for the entire duration of a tournament.”
The ruling revokes both Knox’s win in the Region 7 tournament at Lacey High School and his five wins during the state tournament at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. The reduction in wins gives him an official high school record of 136-1.
Knox Jr. was originally committed to Cornell but ultimately made the move to Rutgers, where he is set to begin his college career following a grayshirt season. Knox earned a bronze medal at the U.S. Open at 57kg in May in Las Vegas and followed that by finishing as runner-up at the 2026 Senior World Team Trials in Louisville, Kentucky. He reached the finals by securing a dominant 11-0 technical fall victory over Pan American champion Liam Cronin before falling to Olympic silver medalist Spencer Lee.
The article originally appeared in the July 30 – August 5, 2026 print edition of The Two River Times.
