Joey Ghione

Coach Joey Ghione
Silver State Wrestling Academy
Pictures Courtesy of Joey Ghione
Taking Over
It may sound corny and cliché, but wrestling molded me into the person I am today. It really did. My journey with wrestling started when I was seven-years old. I was born and raised in an athletic household at the New Jersey Shore–my mother was a collegiate gymnast and my dad played minor league baseball (and even got recruited to pro-tryouts). My little brother started wrestling the same time I did, and he was four. Although my brother and I played multiple sports growing up, wrestling took priority in the household. I remember going straight from soccer and baseball games to wrestling practice. When I was nine, my parents reconstructed our basement into a wrestling club called Club Guido, named after our Italian heritage!
 
I started wrestling at Shore Thing Wrestling Club in Lakewood, New Jersey under coach Vinnie Santaniello. Coach Vinnie was an NCAA National Finalist for The College of New Jersey, and as a coach has produced over twenty college All-Americans and New Jersey State NCAA champions, and even an Olympian, out of Frankie Molinaro. Vinnie was a Brick Memorial Alumni (which is where I went to school), so it made sense to train under his watchful eye. Practices at Shore Thing were no joke; they would have easily over sixty high-level wrestlers every night run by former All-Americans and/or state champions, and it is actually still like that to this day.
 
As a youth wrestler, I didn’t really start hitting my stride until middle school. I was a two-time NJ youth State Finalist, and finally won a state title in eighth grade before going into high school. For high school I attended Brick Memorial, which had an extremely rich and deep wrestling history. Brick Memorial’s wrestling program was ran by legendary head coach Dan O’Cone, who was a 3x NCAA All-American and 2x NJ coach of the year. He consistently had his teams ranked in top 25 in the country every year. In high school, I was a two-time State Place Winner. Unfortunately, those two times were my Freshman and Sophomore years, and the most important years for college recruiting opportunities (Junior and Senior year) were derailed by injuries. Luckily for me, I placed Eighth at Super 32 which helped me score scholarship opportunities before getting hurt.
 
I committed to Lock Haven University my Senior year. Lock Haven was ranked 16th in the Division 1 rankings at the time I committed. While I was there, we were always in the top 30 in the country, and occasionally in the top 20. I wrestled for Lock Haven for three years and started each year that I was there. Towards the end of my Junior year at Lock Haven, I decided to walk away from wrestling. I was burnt-out, and mentally broken from a bad weight cut from the year before, and I didn’t mesh with the new coaching staff that was hired before my Junior year. My little brother, Gianni, was ranked 4th in the country at the time and was gearing up to wrestle for UPenn. He convinced me to give wrestling one more shot for my last year of eligibility.
 
I decided to transfer to Elizabethtown College my Senior year to have one last dance with wrestling. The head coach, Eric Walker, was one of my dad’s best friends and has been close to our family since I was about ten-years old. He was the only college coach to give me a chance to finish out my college career. At Elizabethtown College, I finished my Senior year 27-6, and ended up placing 4th place at the NCAA Championships, and finishing my career as an NCAA All-American. After college, I was hired onto the Elizabethtown’s coaching staff and thus started my coaching career.
 
I continued my coaching career after moving to Reno, taking an Assistant Coaching job under Josh Nolan at Silver State Wrestling Academy. I coached under Josh for about a year and a half, before now taking over ownership. I am incredibly lucky to pick up where Josh left off, as he built a family within the wrestling community at Silver State. I am also grateful for him showing me the ropes in creating a system where the athletes improve every day, as well as helping me with the business aspect of things. I believe, it is my duty that I continue to make strides from where Josh left off keeping the same model of maintaining the family he created within the club, and always putting our athletes first. I also believe coming from one of the biggest wrestling clubs in the country, as well as growing up in one of the biggest wrestling hot spots, has helped me create a vision for what I would like to make Silver State to be in the future!
 
Growing up in the wrestling hub of the country, I never realized how much of difference there is between the wrestling in the east coast then west coast, until I left. Like I previously said, My youth and high school careers took place in New Jersey, and my college career was based out of Pennsylvania. You always see the statistics that the majority of college All-Americans, Nationally ranked high schoolers, and World Team members hail from eastern states such as New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio.
 
Moving from the east coast to Reno was quite a wrestling shock. I really couldn’t put my finger on one specific thing that clearly identified the difference, besides the fact that wrestling is very much engrained in the culture back on the east coast. The east coast is comprised of blue collar people that either live in a major city or right outside. Wrestling has a history there; people’s parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents either wrestled or did some form of martial arts. With that being said, another difference might be that with New Jersey being so heavily populated, you have to elevate your game higher to make a name for yourself, thus creating healthy competition. This competition has been lasting for YEARS, and the retired athletes give back to the youth community, creating a cycle. In Reno and Nevada, many kids primarily only wrestle during the season, making it hard to build on skills if they aren’t training them consistently.
 
So, the big question is can Nevada catch up to the east coast? The answer is YES, but it is not going to be easy. Youth wrestlers and parents need to buy into the wrestling lifestyle. I am not saying drag your kids into practice three times a day and travel the country for tournaments all year around. What I am saying is wrestling needs to be a priority in an athlete’s life, keeping them in the gym for a majority of the year. Keep your athletes skills sharp without burning them out, once or twice a week is totally fine. This will begin to start the wrestling culture in Nevada after these athletes finish their career and give back.
 
The biggest thing is keeping wrestling FUN! DO NOT let your kids cut weight. Make practice fun and interesting, and keep it wrestling based. We have seen big time wrestlers come out of Reno and all of Nevada, and it is time to do it more consistently.