Way late to the boat on this one, but figured I’d throw mine in nonetheless:
I’ve lived most of my life in NW PA, Corry more specifically, save for the 3 years I lived in Maryland as a kid. I was a pumpkin pusher until part way through 7th grade when my stepdad, who was a SQ for Eisenhower back in 1986 and wrestled collegiately for a semester at Slippery Rock before he washed out, asked me if I was tired of sitting the bench. Mind you, I’m 6’4” so I was never really recruited for much of anything besides basketball as a kid. I thought about it for a bit and started to consider how terrible I really was at basketball. I was athletic, but couldn’t jump high to save my life and had little finesse overall so I would always be more of a bench player. I did a novice tournament at my local high school and barely won one match with a half nelson I couldn’t remember how to run correctly. Areas came around, my first ever weight cut got to me, I freaked out and I told my mom I wasn’t wrestling in the tournament so I no showed weigh ins. Wound up going to a Chertow camp in State College in the summer with my brother, step dad and a buddy or two and getting my ass kicked and frustrating the Fendone brothers from Edinboro. They were hired as clinicians while Joey was an assistant to Tim Flynn and Shawn was finishing his career. I did better my 8th grade year and actually placed at a couple of tournaments. I went to a Chertow camp again in State College with the same crew from the year previous and I held my own with the other campers this time.
I wound up staying down in JH my 9th grade year because our varsity team was loaded and I was still very wet behind the ears. I did very well that year and placed at almost all of the tournaments we went to. I ended up transferring schools my sophomore year because my stepdad got the HC gig and was the starter at 215. I got absolutely annihilated. Our section was loaded (3/4 of the place winners went on to states, the other one made it to regions) and I was still pretty green. I did, however, win a match in a rivalry dual after having my nose bleed constantly for 15-20 minutes or so prior to the match. Other than that, I lost significantly more than I won. But, something in me changed after that season and I started to work out hard. I hated losing and getting booed by some of our fans so much that it became my driving force to improve. I shed some baby fat and put on a little muscle and went to a team camp at Edinboro during the summer. My stepdad got the HC gig at my old school so I wrestled for that program again. We wrestled AAA that year so we competed against teams like McDowell, Cathedral Prep, and General McLane. I finally achieved an over .500 record and made the district semis. Senior year, we dropped down in classification and wrestled AA. I won 30 matches, placed 4th at sections, 5th at districts (beat a kid from Jamestown who I later found out made excuses for why I beat him in the semis of a tournament and ended his career in the blood rounds. Also winked at his sister when I came off the mat), qualified for regions, and bowed out in the consolation semis. The 2 finalists in my region wound up wrestling D1 and placing at states.
After the season, I got 3 letters of interest: a D3 program, a NCWA team and a JUCO school. Ruled out 2 of them immediately and wound up visiting/committing to the NCWA team, Penn State DuBois. Our college AD just so happened to be former Clarion HC Ken Nellis. I had what I consider to be a successful career: 2x national qualifier, 1st team all conference freshman year, 2nd team all conference sophomore year, pinned a GA state finalist to beat our long time rival for the first time, also beat a 2x MD state finalist. Completed my semester of internship fieldwork, graduated with my Associate of Science in Occupational Therapy in December 2015 and started work after passing my boards in the spring of 2016.
I spent 2 seasons volunteer coaching under my stepdad at my old HS program and transitioned to coaching the youth wrestling program. In 4 seasons there, I was fortunate enough to coach a few state placewinners and 2 state finalists, one of which was our program’s first female state champion. I’ve also been able to coach some kids to their first state tournament appearance which are some of my favorite moments. I decided to step away from the program this spring in order to do some travel therapy work.
Bonus fact: my stepdad gave me a strong reverence for the older generation of wrestlers like the studs from the 70/80’s senior level teams (i.e. Wade Schalles, Chris Taylor, Butch Keaser, Rob Waller, the Peterson brothers, the Schultz brothers, the Banach brothers, etc.). I still follow the senior level teams now and have had the distinct privilege to have met and spoke with Bruce Baumgartner, arguably the best US HWT ever, many times along with many other notable wrestlers over the years. This sport is truly one that unites us like no other.
