Stensation pointed us to a multi-faceted news release from the U of M on today's memorial service for Norman Borlaug. For those who don' t know, Borlaug was a U of M graduate and 1970 Nobel Prize winner who passed away in September at the age of 95.

Borlaug was also a wrestler, and Ryan Maus from UMNews put together a nice piece on the relationship between Gophers wrestling coach J Robinson and Borlaug. Robinson spoke at the memorial today; here is an excerpt from the UMNews story:

The meeting marked the start of a friendship that would last for more than 20 years. Borlaug, who once recalled that he won "nine of 11 bouts" during a stretch of his Gopher career and who was also a referee at the first-ever Minnesota state high school wrestling tournament in 1938, would often speak to the Gopher wrestlers during his visits to Minnesota, imparting important lessons to Robinson's athletes. He was a guest of honor at the Minnesota-Iowa dual meet in 2002 at the Xcel Energy Center, and would often write the Gophers to congratulate them on their national success.

"The legacy he'll leave for the wrestling team is that there's life after wrestling," says Robinson. "The skills that you learn in wrestling are transferrable to other things in life. Yeah, it's great to be an NCAA champion or Olympic champion, but there are other things to come."

Robinson, who spent a day with Borlaug late this summer in his Texas home, especially admired Borlaug's humble nature. ...

"He was a wrestler, an alumnus, a friend," says Robinson. "He was one of those special people you meet throughout your life that, even if you see them 20 years later, your face lights up. There was a magic there, a connection there. "That's what made Norm Borlaug so special to so many people. Because of his roots, he connected with so many people. That's who he was to me—he was my friend Norm."