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Aurora senior wrestler Ian Jackson has his recruiting pitch pinned down.
“I just kind of went up to them and was like, ‘Do you ever get a little angry? A little upset? Let me tell you how to get that emotion out,'” he said. “Then I pitch them wrestling.”
It’s what you have to do when you’re starting a program from scratch. For Jackson it’s about fulfilling a dream four years in the making.
“His freshman year in my class he goes, ‘I’m going to get a wrestling program started,'” said head coach Todd Campbell. “I go, ‘I’ll believe it when i see it.'”
But after researching the benefits of the program and making his sales pitch to the school board, Jackson was given the go ahead to leave his latest mark on Houn Dawg athletics.
“Just doing the research ourselves it took us at least six hours or so, just putting everything together and putting it in front of them,” said Jackson.
Jackson just led his football team in rushing en route to First Team All-Big Eight Conference honors to help deliver the Aurora’s first district football title since before he was born.
“In the next handful of years I’m hoping to see the faces that I see here now,” said Jackson.
“I’m hoping to see these freshmen and sophomores here that I see here with me. And I hope that they get a lot better along the way, because there’s a lot of great athletes here.”
These athletes otherwise would not be participating in athletics at Aurora. For more than half of the wrestlers in this program, this is the only sport they play.
“I used to be in baseball, but I really didn’t get back into it, said Orran Cope, a junior wrestler on the team. “Once I got into high school I found that FFA and marching band were a lot more enjoyable than baseball.”
The Big 8 Conference is loaded with prestigious programs. So many of these newcomers with weeks of experience find themselves wrestling state qualifiers who have been doing it for almost ten years. It can be frustrating for both the boys and girls.
“For me right now, it’s very discouraging,” said freshman wrestler Aubrey Simpson. “I’m learning to take it match by match because I’m new and starting fresh.”
Campbell is a veteran football coach at Aurora. Now as the wrestling head coach, he knows these are feelings he has to teach his wrestlers to grapple with.
“I see part of my job as to teach them wrestling and keep them from getting discouraged,” he said.
“I’ve enjoyed it greatly,” said Cope. “Learning from some of these kids and being with these kids while they’re learning has been really fun. And really it’s the friendships.”
Jackson’s hope is that this new program will be teaching future Houn Dawgs how to get up off of the mat for years to come.
“I don’t want this program to burn out in five years,” he said. I hope people keep coming out and getting the love that I’ve got from this sport.”
