Leaderboard

By JEREMY HINES Thehines7@gmail.com When Brady Byrd was young, he would wake up early, pack his wrestling gear in his parent’s vehicle and make the long journey to whatever tournament they could find. Often, hours later, he would return with a couple of losses to show for his effort. “Brady started wrestling in fifth grade,” his father, Sean said. “Every tournament around us was at least an hour drive. Normally he would go 0-2. But he kept doing it and kept doing it. Sometimes he would even move up weight classes just to get matches.” While the losses piled up, so did Byrd’s determination. If wrestling was easy, he might not have ever fallen in love with the sport. The losses helped build him into one of the best wrestlers in Washington High School history. “That prepared me,” Brady said. “Not a lot of kids at this level have been on the losing side like I have. It took me a long time before I started to see success. For the longest time my worst sport was wrestling. Being on that losing side taught me to never shy away from anything. I was not going to quit just because I wasn’t good at it. That’s never a valid reason to quit. You have to get better. That’s the only option.” Now, Byrd is the first Fargo double All-American to ever come out of the prestigious Maurer Caughlin Wrestling Club. Byrd finished third in freestyle this year and seventh in Greco-Roman. He is currently ranked No. 5 in the state at 106 pounds and has his sights set on taking the top of the platform at the state finals. He’s come a long way – but it was never easy. “The biggest thing with Brady, is that a lot of guys see him now, succeeding and being a good wrestler,” Washington coach Aaron Cissell said. “But nobody looks deep enough to see all the struggles and tournaments where he would lose. He stuck with it. It’s all paying off now. He has overcome all of that and fought to be successful.” Brady started wrestling 106 pounds as a freshman. At the time he weighed just 91 pounds. He’s always been a smaller guy. This, his senior season, is the first time he’s had to cut any weight at all. And even now, the cut is minimal. Sean, his dad, was a state placer in high school. “I placed seventh my senior year at 112 pounds,” Sean said. “Our styles are similar except that I was all heart and toughness and didn’t have technique. Brady is heart, toughness and has excellent technique. “I was a Region guy who was coached by Hall of famer Walt Prochno Kankakee Valley. Brady wrestles the region style in southern Indiana - tough and gritty.” Brady agrees that toughness and grit are keys to his success. “The grit is what makes me successful,” Brady said. I’ve always had it. A lot of kids don’t like to wrestle me. I stay in their face and stay physical.” Injuries have plagued Brady in his young career. He has suffered an ankle and a knee injury but has bounced back from both. “Brady is the most determined and hardest working guy I’ve ever seen,” Cissell said. “He is tough in all areas.” Brady owns Washington’s winning percentage record, but he wants to set the school’s win record and pin record this season. Both are well within his grasp. He also wants to become the third wrestler from his school to qualify for the state finals (Mark Kelsey did it in 1984 and Aaron Brower in 2003). He also wants to become the first Washington wrestler to place at state. Brady also does whatever is necessary to help his team. Coaches have learned to rely on him with helping teach moves in a way the other wrestlers can understand. “People really respect Brady,” Sean said. “So, when we are teaching moves, it’s better to have a Brady show them because he can speak their language and they really feed off of him.” Brady would like to wrestle in college and even the Olympics one day. He has excellent grades and was named to the Academic All-State Team. Outside of wrestling Brady enjoys competitive bass fishing, hunting and playing pickle ball. “Brady is the most determined kid you’ll ever meet,” Sean said. “He works hard at everything, and the work is finally starting to pay dividends.” Brady has started this young season off with 15 consecutive wins. He hopes for much more as the year goes on. He loves the sport and enjoys working at it. “Wrestling is one-on-one,” Brady said. “People call me crazy because I train so much. I don’t like relying on other people to win. I like relying on myself. What I put in is what I get out.”

By Anna Kayser In 2008, IndianaMat emerged as an informational resource for high school wrestling across the state of Indiana, filling a communication void and connecting the wrestling community from border to border. Fifteen years later, it continues to serve as the epicenter of the Indiana wrestling community, from providing feature stories on prominent athletes to weekly rankings across regions. This is the story of how it began. For years, a message board run by the Indiana High School Wrestling Coaches Association (IHSWCA) served as the main source of communications for wrestlers, fans and coaches – both high school and college coaches looking to recruit – on lineups, rankings (loose rankings, if any at all) and results. It was late-November, peak holiday and weight-cutting season for wrestlers across the state with less than one month of official practice under their belts, when the message board got hacked and effectively rendered useless. There was no Twitter – or X, as it’s now known – to provide instantaneous information like there is today. Facebook was just gaining traction, officially surpassing MySpace as the most used social media app earlier that year. “[The message board] was your go-to place to get wrestling information,” Joe Caprino, creator of IndianaMat, said. “You didn’t have access to cell phones and such – everyone was communicating that way. It was really popping at times, especially during the season.” The old message board served as an initial connection for wrestling fans in the state, which is how the trio of Caprino, Chad Hollenbaugh (who had previously coached with Caprino) and Eric McGill ­(a former two-time state champion at Munster High School and Cornell University wrestler) formed to create a new information center. With the first week of competition looming, there was a frenzy for information and no resource to turn to. Caprino, Hollenbaugh and McGill knew something new was needed – and quickly. “Everyone was just needing information,” Caprino said. “Matches were starting and they wanted to know who won where. Everyone was looking for lineups. For about a week or 10 days, people were just going nuts trying to figure out how to get results and everything.” It took some encouraging on Hollenbaugh and McGill’s part to convince Caprino to create the website and provide a new alternative for fans to turn to, but that encouragement quickly turned to action. After going back and forth on the possibility of creating a website, Caprino pulled the trigger on Dec. 2, with help from the two that convinced him in the first place. “[The old message board] was a really convenient way for people to chat and keep in touch with their friends, so when that website went down it kind of created a void,” McGill said. “I think my role was more of just offering support and being willing to help out wherever it was needed.” McGill – who was then in his sophomore year at Cornell – took over the rankings in between practice and schoolwork. Hollenbaugh wrote articles early on and was instrumental in getting the word out about the website by placing an advertisement in a program for upcoming duals. News traveled quickly, and within 24 hours of the site being up, Caprino had to replace the server to keep up with the traffic they were experiencing. Word of mouth helped as well, with fans who were aware of the site sending out information to the masses. Within the first few days, Caprino estimates that the website had hundreds of members, something that never could have been reached without the goals they set and exceeded in the early days. “[We just wanted to] provide great coverage: Rankings, articles and obviously results. Put everyone onto the encyclopedia of [Indiana] wrestling, is what it’s kind of evolved into,” Caprino said. “The goal is to just continue to get information and results, and then to obviously promote the sport. We wanted to give recognition to kids and coaches for all of their work.” Over the years, the website has grown beyond the borders Indiana – and the internet. Caprino has continued to build on the website’s foundation for years, becoming recognized nationally through tournaments and college coaches seeking information. “I know that the website now is extremely popular in terms of college coaches going and checking the rankings and making decisions about recruiting based on those things, so it’s really been taken to new heights,” McGill said. “It’s just kind of a cool thing to be a part of in the beginning because I know what IndianaMat has become, and to have just a small part in getting started is pretty cool to reflect back on.” Now, the website and growth of IndianaMat and the wrestling community can only continue to move forward. With the evolution of social media and the reach that’s possible, the ceiling for IndianaMat and the sport in Indiana is sky-high. However, the goals haven’t necessarily changed. “The goal is just to keep doing a lot of great coverage and promotion of the kids.” Caprino said. “I think [the sport] has grown a lot in the 15 years and it’s pretty neat to see that growth with the kids and how people use IndianaMat.”