My Son Nick Kiussis Accomplished A Major Goal In His Life!

My Son Nick Kiussis Won A High School Wrestling State Championship!

A Testimony To His Perseverance...

This past March, on March 11th to be exact, my oldest son Nick accomplished a major goal in his life.  He won an Ohio Wrestling State Championship (OHSAA Division 1) in the 160 lb. weight class as a Senior wrestling for Brunswick High School!

Of course I'm biased as I am his father, but I think most people who know the circumstances of this achievement view it as being somewhat special as well.  The next few posts are going to be, for the most part, the story of that journey.  I feel the need to document some of the important points of this experience before they fade with the passage of time. 

Nicky, as we affectionately call him in our family, started wrestling when he was in first grade at the age of 7.  He came home from school one October day excitedly waving a flyer around that was passed out at school that day. "Daddy! Daddy! They have wrestling! Can I join?"  "Of course you can buddy!" I replied.  That day set everything in motion.  A twelve year journey that now, when I look back at it, were among the most incredible years of our family's life.

See, what very few people know outside of my family is that when my wife Pam was pregnant with Nicky I use to tell her...and Nicky inside her belly...that he was my wrestler and that one day he would be a state champion!  This wasn't a once or twice occurrence mind you...I spent a LOT of time rubbing Pam's belly and telling Nicky how much I looked forward to his arrival and all the things I wanted to do with him.  So he heard this a great deal.

The days both my sons were born were by far the happiest days of my life.  Nothing compares.  Since Nicky was my first born it was definitely the more emotional of the two...being a first time father present at his son's birth was just absolutely overwhelming to me.  I remember looking at him...and crying.  Just crying, unabashedly, because the love I felt was so instantly deep that I knew I would never be the same man again.  And I never was.  My reason WHY arrived.  And when my incredible son Kevin arrived 3 and a half years later my reason WHY doubled.  Being a great father to them and teaching them how to be stand up men was my purpose.

God blessed Nicky with extraordinary athleticism.  I was very athletic when I was younger myself, but because of a troubled home life and bad relationship with my father I never had the opportunity to showcase it in the school arena.  I was bound and determined to give Nicky and Kevin every opportunity within my means to showcase their talents...whatever they may be and however unique they may be to each boy.  Nicky started walking and a day later was running on uneven ground! Exceptional balance.  The lady's at the day care that he was at who witnessed this remarked to my wife how amazed they were by this.

The first few years of a young boy's wrestling career can be tough. For the most part it's all about teaching the kids the basics of the sport.  Ant that's what he began to learn in the North Royalton Youth Wrestling Club.  What a good stance is and how to stay in one.  Learning how to move. How to sprawl.  How to change levels and penetrate so you can accomplish a takedown.  How to spin around an opponent and get behind so you can score. A basic breakdown, stand up escape, and a pinning combination or two round things out.  It's really about teaching them the basics and teaching them to work hard while making sure they're having fun doing so.  

As with all sports, kids have differing levels of ability with some being able to advance faster than others.  This was the case with Nicky.  Halfway through the season the coaches felt it was appropriate to move him to the other side of the room to practice with the more experienced boys.  Kids who had at least two years of experience.  The youth club was for kids in grades 1-6 so, for the most part, the average kid had about three years of experience.  Not every kid starts in first grade like Nicky.  Some start rolling around as young as 4 yrs. old, and some start their first year when they are in 4th, 5th, or 6th grades.  Nicky began to wrestle some of the kids who were a couple years older with a few more years experience...and he gave them all they could handle.  By the time he was 9 he was wrestling varsity for the club and competing against the other boys in his weight class from other clubs within our league, the Ohio Youth Wrestling Association.  Here's a picture when he was 7 yrs. old and in his first year of wrestling with the North Royalton Youth Wrestling Club.  All 55 lbs. of him! He's in the red and black shirt with his headgear on hitting the double bicep pose!

 Life is all about relationships.  Over the course of Nicky's first three seasons I met a lot of other dads who I became friendly with. Some of them had a few sons who were wrestling and who therefore were more experienced in what it took to develop a young wrestler at a high level.  I took notice.  I listened. I learned.  I saw that I had many of the right ideas concerning Nicky's development. And because of this I decided that some changes and additional effort on my part had to take place.

The coaches at the North Royalton Youth Wrestling club were decent enough fellows...but the program was a 90 day club that did not make a commitment outside of that time period towards making the kids better.  No camps to retain the skills they learned during the season...no tournaments that they would go to as a team where the boys could continue to learn how to compete.  I didn't agree with this philosophy.  I took note that other teams, the feeder teams of the successful high school programs in our area, were doing things much differently.

Another thing that made the decision to look for a different youth club for Nicky to wrestle out of rather easy was the fact that there was a personality conflict between the head coach and I.  It was nothing major...but I could tell that he didn't like me.  And well, the feeling was mutual.  I'm a pretty straight shooter.  I'm not everybody's cup of tea...nor do I try to be.  I was pretty aggressive about rooting on my boy (I've been told my voice carries) and I also wrestled Nicky at tournaments on the weekends when our club team wasn't competing at anything other than their league matches. While the other parents kids were getting one or two matches a week, Nicky was getting in four or five.  So in a nutshell, without going into a whole lot of details, I decided after Nicky's third youth season to enroll him into one of the more successful youth wrestling programs in the area.

Here's his win loss record for his first three seasons wrestling for the North Royalton Youth Club.

Season One: (23-10) Pins/Techs (20)
Season Two: (27-2)  Pins/Techs (19)
Season Three: (31-14) Pins/Techs (22) 

This wraps up the story of Nicky's 1st three years of his youth wrestling career.  The next entry will chronicle the following three years where he begins to emerge as a major youth contender in the State of Ohio.  Until then here's a few videos that you can check out!
   
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