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JERRY BRADY (center), shown with older brother Jim (left) and younger brother Joe in this January 1983 photo, couldn’t be happier with the way his first season as coach at Lakeside Junior High has gone. KARL PEARSON
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DON McCORMACK
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A Don McCormack column: It still matters to Brady
Like pretty much everyone involved in the sport, when it comes to wrestling, Jerry Brady is passionate.
So it is with a great sense of pride he speaks of seeing two of his Lakeside Junior High competitors qualify for this weekend’s 11th annual Ohio Athletic Committee Junior High State Wrestling Championships.
The competition will be held Saturday and Sunday at the Marion County Memorial Coliseum in Marion.
Kyle Conel (51-2) and Riley Dell (43-8) of the Dragons will be squaring off against the other top wrestlers in the state at their respective weight classes, 172 and 150 pounds.
However, Conel and Dell are pieces to a greater puzzle at Lakeside Junior High that has come together especially well this winter.
The Dragons went 16-4 as a team, which numbered between 35 and 40 members during the season.
Lakeside defeated all three Mentor junior highs, along with Willoughby and Chardon. It also defeated area teams from Braden, Geneva, Jefferson, Conneaut and PV.
“We did all this with first- and second-year wrestlers,” Brady said. “We put our focus on basic wrestling and being tougher than our opponents.”
Which would seem to fit Brady’s personality just perfectly. A 1985 Ashtabula High School graduate, he, along with older brother, Jim, and younger brother, Jerry (who went on to become Northeastern Conference champion at 126 pounds in 1986 for the Panthers), were all standout wrestlers for the Panthers. In the 1982-83 season, all three sons of Mr. and Mrs. Jim Brady wrestled for the Panthers simultaneously for coach Dan Craft’s Panthers.
In fact, Jerry told the Star Beacon in 1983, “The toughest matches we have are in the family,” a mindset he obviously taught his junior high Dragons this season as a coach.
“I told the kids on Day 1 that if we try to wrestle with these other teams on our schedule, that we were going to get beat all year. But if we learned some basic wrestling skills and disciplines and tried to turn it into a match to see who is physically tougher, then we had a chance.”
“Had a chance” morphed into much more than that. The Dragons’ four losses all came to top-notch programs, according to Brady — Madison (twice), Riverside and Howland.
However, the end of the regular-season schedule did not mean an end to the work being done on the mats, according to Brady.
“After our season ended the first week of February, our boys have continued to express interest in wrestling tournaments and practicing a couple days a week,” he said. “We have a group of 8 to 10 kids who have wrestled open tournaments on the weekends and have been practicing at Madison and Perry with their teams two to three days a week.”
In his first season coaching at the junior high level, Brady, whose son, Nick, is a sixth grader and involved in the Little Lizards elementary program, has come to appreciate the state of where the Lakeside program stands. Pat Ryan took over as the varsity coach at Lakeside this winter.
“This is the most interest that I have seen in Lakeside wrestling in years,” he said. “We have a full-fledged pee-wee program with the Little Lizards, coached by Jake Reihner, who does a great job with the elementary kids.
“The junior high is rolling and Pat Ryan is doing a great job with the high school program.”
All the success, highlighted by Conel and Dell heading to the state tournament this weekend with Joey Baitt and Evan Francis (whose father, Scott was NEC champion at 119 pounds in 1984 and then at 126 pounds in 1985 for Madison) of Jefferson has Brady pumped up about what awaits the Dragon matmen around the next several bends.
“I think that Lakeside is about to make its presence known in the area in wrestling,” he said.
McCormack is the sports editor of the Star Beacon. Reach him at donmac@suite224.net.
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