Of the school-record 9 state qualifiers at Buffalo.. 4 of them are siblings…A pair of stepbrothers and a brother and sister..And the coach has two of his sons on the team.
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All of them share something in common..As siblings growing up, they tore up their homes and each other wrestling.
“You don’t even get a normal hug at our house. It always turns into pummeling and fighting,” laughs Floyd Miller, who’s sister Lizzy is also on the team. “We’ve tore up lamps, windows, went through a wall a couple of times.”
“Picture frames, flower pots, all kinds of things really,” adds Marcus Autry, whose stepbrother Blake Williamson is also on the team.
“We were wrestling on hay bales and I tipped Levi off the side of it,” recalls Colten Kenady, whose younger brother Levi is also a wrestler. “He hit a little milk crate and it almost took his toe off.”
“He jumped off the bed and onto this little beanbag,” Williamson said of his stepbrother Marcus. “And he bounced off the beanbag and onto the floor and broke his collarbone.”
“We’re messing around throwing knives and I throw a knife that hit him in the leg,” Levi Kenady said of the time he injured Colten. “He decided to stitch it himself. It got infected.”
“He’s put my head through a wall a few times,” Lizzy Miller says of her brother Floyd. “So I get a little edgy around him.”
Floyd and Lizzy Miller are the bother-sister combo. Floyd has made state in each of his two years in high school while his freshmen sister is only the 19th female in Missouri history to qualify for state and will be the only girl at this year’s event.
“It for sure raises my self-confidence,” Lizzy said. “There’s a lot of strength difference so it comes down to technique and the work you put into it.”
State qualifiers Blake Williamson and Marcus Autry are stepbrothers who grew up as fans of professional wrestling.
“We always thought it was cool to try out the moves on each other in the pool or on the bed,” Williamson recalls.
And while they now say they enjoy real wrestling more than the WWE-kind, they admit there are some pro pummeling moves they wish they could have brought along to high school.
“I was pretty disappointed that you couldn’t punch them,” Autry said.
But at least they don’t have to spend 24-hours-a-day with the coach as Colten and Levi Kenady do as the sons of first-year head coach Nate Kenady.
“You mess up in practice and you got to go home to that,” Levi said. “Sometimes it doesn’t turn out too well.”
“Sometimes I have to catch myself,” coach Kenady admits. “Expecting more out them because I’m their coach and their dad. So I’m like, ‘I know you can do better than this because I’ve seen you at home’.”
But the high-expectations put on this enitre Herd of Bison has paid off as tis winning program has become a source of pride in a community longing to see its other athletic teams have breakthrough seasons as well.
“Success breeds success,” coach Kenady says. “Hopefully our success encourages other kids to come out for sports and push for themselves to do better.”
