"That's why he wrestled so long," Dolph said of Schultz and his superior technique. "He was always in the right position."
The memories remain in Technicolor for Dolph - of his larger-than-life mentor, of his own couple of years living at John E. du Pont's deluxe (and bizarre) Foxcatcher estate, of wrestling for the elite Team Foxcatcher coached by Schultz . . .
. . . and of the day, 16 years ago on Thursday, that du Pont, an heir to the du Pont chemical fortune, benefactor of Team Foxcatcher, murdered the 36-year-old Schultz.
It also means remembering how du Pont videotaped the woods outside his house, believing wrestlers were out there hiding, and the smaller wrestlers were hiding in his walls.
"He put razor wire in his walls," Dolph said of du Pont.
When did Dolph realize that du Pont, the wealthy sponsor of Team Foxcatcher, was psychologically off?
"The minute I met him," Dolph said last week.
Dolph, who had moved away from Foxcatcher by the time of the murder, and later testified at du Pont's trial, realizes that even the oldest current Penn wrestlers were only beginning elementary school back around Jan. 26, 1996, when Dolph received a phone call - John had shot Dave. Dolph believes even the youngest Quaker wrestlers all have heard parts of the story. It's part of the history of their sport. On the wall in Penn's wrestling room inside Hutchinson Gym is a painting, protected in Plexiglas, of Schultz in a USA singlet, working with a Penn wrestler at a clinic.
The people in the background of the painting, Dolph said, "are kind of ghosts."
