By Rob Sherrill, W.I.N. Columnist

My last column focused on the fact that two programs, Blairstown (N.J.) Blair Academy and Lakewood (Ohio) St. Edward High, had set up shop at the top of our Top 25 team rankings over the past decade. So regularly, in fact, that a “needs test” for holes in the two schools’ line-ups wasn’t necessary … based on recent history anyway.

            This wasn’t to say that “The Road to No. 1” leads to some gated community closed to other schools. Far from it. Any school, given the right set of circumstances, can earn its way to the top.

            In two magical December weeks, one school, St. Paris (Ohio) Graham High, has done exactly that. The Falcons now stand on the brink of joining that fraternity after recording back-to-back victories in two of high school wrestling’s hallowed halls, both in their own state:

            • at Cuyahoga Falls Walsh Jesuit High, where they became the first public school ever to win the prestigious Asics Ironman Invitational, Dec. 9;

            • at St. Edward High, where they brought down the banners and the house with a resounding 47-13 victory over the hosts in the finals of the Elite Duals, Dec. 15. That result reversed a score of similar proportions in favor of St. Edward a year ago.

            Blair kept itself hanging on to some hope, winning the TGI Friday’s Beast of the East Tournament by 20 points without Minnesota-recruit Mario Mason, who sat out the event to rest a pair of sprained ankles. The Bucs won that title over Harrisburg Central Dauphin High, which itself has broken through the glass ceiling in the elite Pennsylvania wrestling landscape to become that state’s top program.

            Graham is no newcomer to the national championship race. The Falcons have owned the state’s Division 2 — which actually has more depth than St. Edward’s big-school Division 1 in many years — with seven consecutive state titles; most of the runaway variety and some in record-breaking fashion.

            But Graham’s mano-y-mano clashes with the Eagles often turned into debacles … until this year, at least.

            All of this gives other programs out there some hope. Remember when women’s college basketball was dominated by two schools, Connec-ticut and Tennessee, for what seemed like decades? That sport finally opened up. With Graham supplying the blueprint, high school wrestling may be getting ready to take a similar step.

            What happened

            Blair coach Jeff Buxton said the difference between the Graham team he saw this month at Walsh and previous Falcons teams was like night and day.

            “Was there a difference? Absolutely,” Buxton said. “They won all the close matches. When they were in matches where you’d pick the other guy to win, they came through with one-point wins.

            “They have one of those teams that is very technically sound. But the thing they’ve added is that they’re really mentally tough and they haven’t come through before in those kinds of situations. They wrestled with a lot of tenacity. They wrestled with a lot of toughness. Some people have thought before that they were going to win the Ironman or that they were going to handle St. Edward in a dual meet or they were going to do well against Blair in a dual meet and they always came up short.

            “I think they have made a big step mentally in showing they’re worthy of being one of the best teams in the country. And they’re loaded with young kids. They’ve got the horses up and down the line, but they reacted well to the pressure, and stood up to it and they did a great job.”

            Added Lombard (Ill.) Montini High coach Mike Bukovsky: “I think they have been building to this level for a few years, and all of those “little things” are starting to make the difference.”

Commitment over luck

            No matter the school, though, there are other factors at work.

             “To do as well as we have over the years, it’s taken a lot of luck,” Buxton said. “We’ve been able to stay relatively healthy, we’ve been able to keep a good chemistry on our team where everybody is thinking about team, and we’ve been able to perform at a high level at all the big events. With the schedule we have, it’s not always easy.

            “(You must have) commitment from the coaches, commitment from the team, but just as important is the commitment from the parents. I’ve been lucky to have all of those things, guys who are willing to do what it takes. I’ve had guys tell me they want to do particular things, and if you want to do those particular things, this is what you’re gonna have to do. So we’ve had great commitment from our kids who have done exactly what we’ve asked them to do.”

            Commitment. Whether in an established program or in a program trying to break through, that word expressed a recurring theme, at many levels: coaches, wrestlers, parents, administrations. State high school associations, which often have travel and match limit rules in place from one state to the next impede the development of those commitments.

            Kaukauna (Wisc.) High turned in a strong showing at the Ironman, finishing 12th and getting an impressive performance from 189-pound champion Joe Budi, who with each passing week is making the smile on the face of his future college coach, Old Dominion’s Steve Martin, just a little wider.

            The Grey Ghosts have a formidable measuring stick in their own state: Wisconsin Rapids Lincoln High, which has won 12 of the last 13 Division 1 state titles and itself has been ranked nationally by W.I.N. on several occasions. This year, Kaukauna is off to a fast start in duals as well and the prospects of repeating as champion of its own Cheesehead Invitational in January — this time in the glare of the national spotlight — has the Grey Ghosts sky high.

            “I think we are a good program who aspires to be mentioned among the top mid-size public schools in the country. But before we do that we need to care of business within our own state and win a first championship,” Kaukauna coach Jeff Matczak said. “We’ve been knocking on the door seriously since 1999 and we’ve decided it’s about time we just bust the darn thing down. We’ve had some real good kids go through here, but what separates us from the next tier is depth. Three or four soft spots in a line-up will not get it done when we’re battling against a school with more tradition and size like Wisconsin Rapids.”

            Commitment can be expensive in Kaukauna, a blue-collar paper mill town where money is tight and the school district carries a $1.5 million deficit.

            “I can honestly say that I have rarely, if ever, had to fire a bullet against administration,” Matczak said. “Things have tightened up, but our kids would never know the difference.

            “We are slowly trying to boil out the concept of “off-season” wrestling. The word and the idea makes kids believe they have an option to put their shoes in the closet in February and pull them out next November and that’s not how we want it. We want wrestlers, not just kids who participate in wrestling. There is a major difference. We know we may never get 100 percent commitment in a public school that loves football. There will always be a few parents and kids that try to buck the system, but they don’t last very long. We are a long way from where we want to be, but we have done very well with the cards we’re dealt.”

            Judging from their early success, it appears that wrestlers, rather than participants, comprise the majority in the Grey Ghosts wrestling room this season.

            “We look (about 20 miles) north to the Green Bay Packers and see first-hand what a team from a small community can do,” Kaukauna middle school coach Scott Kluever added. “The motivation to win our first state championship has the coaches, wrestlers, volunteers and fans working tirelessly.”

Most winners already have ‘it’

            University of Missouri quarterback Chase Daniel wasn’t a major college football recruit despite putting up video-game numbers at a Texas powerhouse, Southlake Carroll High (the same school at which Lehigh recruit Robert Prigmore hopes to close his high school wrestling career with his first state title), and winning every state championship in sight as a result. Daniel was a shade under six feet tall, didn’t run a 4.4/40 and didn’t throw a laser-like pass 70 yards on a dime. Why did Missouri coach Gary Pinkel take a chance on him?

            “Because he has ‘it,’ ” Pinkel said. “It” took Missouri all the way to a No. 1 Bowl Championship Series ranking … and Daniel all the way to New York as a Heisman Trophy finalist.

            “I don’t really have an answer for what “it” is, but when I took over the Montini program I had already spent years observing and researching the best programs in the state and the country,” said Mike Bukovsky, now in his 14th season at Montini of Lombard, Ill. “There wasn’t one big change to put Montini on the map, but rather hundreds of little changes that made the difference. We emphasize the practice room as the backbone of our program. Too many times, coaches get caught up in all of the other distractions of coaching like grades, eligibility, behavior, parent problems, travel arrangements and lose focus on the practice room.

            “When you are blessed to have our coaching staff and kids like (Mike) Benefiel and (Garrett) Goebel, you are going to have success, but it seems like the best programs attract the best kids. I still go back to my first state qualifying and placing teams, with guys who never wrestled before they got to Montini and still were state place-winners. The best programs take good kids and make them great, and they take average kids and make them good.”

            Yes, even the great schools have rookies in the practice room. And the great coaches embrace them.

            “We’re not focused on rankings,” Buxton said. “We’re focused on improvement.”

            (Rob Sherrill is one of the top high school wrestling analysts in the country and a long-time columnist of W.I.N. He also publishes the “American High School Wrestling Yearbook”. To order a copy, e-mail him at centermatpress@hotmail.com.)