Coach Tyler Perry
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Picture Courtesy of Tyler Perry |
| From Missouri to Nevada |
| Wrestling has been an instrumental part of my life since I first stepped on a mat twenty-one years ago. There are moments in life that you remember like they were yesterday. What ultimately led to a life changing journey, started with a t-shirt. It was the first week of middle school, and I was a chubby twelve-year old kid searching for new friends. One of the kids I sat next to had a gray t-shirt on with a pirate skull wearing a red bandanna, equipped with a pair of crossbones. On the back of the shirt was black lettering that spelled out “1999 Hannibal Youth Wrestling Club State Qualifiers.” I quickly became friends with the kid and had to ask about the shirt that had grabbed my attention. He told me all about the wrestling club, and as winter approached, I found myself wanting to join so that, I too, could have my name on one of those shirts. |
| Hannibal, Missouri is a sleepy, little river town in Northeast Missouri. It has a population of about 18,000 people and is best known as the hometown of famous American author Mark Twain. It is a tight-knit community that fully embraces and supports youth sports, especially wrestling. As I made my way through the ups and downs of learning the world’s hardest sport, one of the things that really motivated me to keep going, was going to the high school meets and seeing the names up on “The Wall.” Much like the t-shirt that got my feet wet, “The Wall” was something that stirred pipe dreams and a spirit to push on, even though I was not very good at the sport that I had come to love. |
| Growing up in a blue collar, Midwestern town is one of the things I am most grateful for. Hannibal’s love and support of our wrestling program was something that I just assumed was the case everywhere else. Whereas, bigger communities and cities have dozens of schools to attend, Hannibal had only one. The guys I grew up with in our youth club, were the same guys battling in our varsity room every morning and afternoon during frost-filled winters. For me, this created a family environment in which everyone held each other accountable, as everyone had lofty goals. One of my most memorable high school wrestling moments was a dual that took place my sophomore year of high school. Hannibal High School is a member of the North Central Missouri Conference (NCMC) and our biggest rival was a private school in the state’s capital, Jefferson City Helias. At one point in time, Helias possessed the longest winning dual streak in the entire country. Going into my sophomore year, they had announced that they would be leaving the NCMC at the end of the year, for all sports. The crusaders came to Korf Gymnasium on a cold January night with a conference record of 153-0. Korf gym is a separate building from HHS and contains and upper and lower section, which makes it bigger than most high school gyms. I am not sure how many people actually showed up, but I remember it seemed like the entire town came out to watch as we attempted to dethrone Helias for the NCMC Championship. In such a unique moment for a sixteen year old kid, I really understood the significance of the dual, when multiple State Champions from the past came in to talk to us before the dual. Top that off with the school superintendent, and there was never a bigger moment at that time of my life. The dual was something I will never forget, as I took out the #4 guy in the state, and we downed the Crusaders 35-22. The dual was the top story on all local news stations, with tons of match footage that we recorded with our VCR. The next morning, on the front page of our local newspaper, was a massive headline 153-1…PIRATES DOWN CRUSADERS. |
| The 3-day Missouri High School State Wrestling Championships takes place at the University of Missouri, where 10-15,000 people show up to catch the best kids in the state try to capture that elusive state title. We would easily have 400-500 people from Hannibal show up to cheer us on every session. Getting to compete there and win a state title, to finally make “The Wall” was a huge deal for this small town kid. Again, we were on the front page of the newspaper, and all over the local news stations. For a teenager with a small scope of the world, this made me feel like a star. I was fortunate to continue my wrestling career at Mizzou, where we were ranked top 10 in the country every year. |
| Upon graduating, I moved to Las Vegas to pursue a career in MMA. After some amateur fights and a 4-2 professional record, I became a dad. At the time, I was training during the day and then working at a nightclub on the strip. This made for a very difficult parenting situation. My wife suggested I use my degree, so I applied for Nevada’s Alternative Route to Licensure (ARL) program. The last day of my student-teaching at Valley High School, a position opened up, and I was fortunate enough to interview for it. Upon being hired, I asked our principal if I could go help out with our wrestling team. She was all for it, and I ended up helping the last month of the season. Shortly after the end of the season, I was named head coach. Stepping into my first head coaching job has been one of the most challenging, yet rewarding things, I have ever done. I knew that there had to be a foundation laid down, in which the kids who walked into our wrestling room, knew it was a place where hard work was done. In four years, we went from no state qualifiers, in year one, to finishing 7th in the state and having multiple state medalists. It has been especially hard without having a youth program, to feed kids in with some experience and knowledge of fundamentals. In these four years, I have come to recognize and understand the differences between the wrestling culture in the Midwest, and in Nevada. Being fortunate enough to coach our Team Nevada kids on the national level has also provided me with some great insight as well. |
| Clark County School District, where I coach, contains 70+ high schools. From a school district with one high school, it is easy for me to see how we were able to build up a very strong program finishing top 3 in the state all four years. We had one youth club and one high school. Kids grew up training together in youth and continued that trend through high school. In Clark County, there are many youth wrestling clubs and a lot of those kids go to different high schools. When you add in the nice weather all year long, I think it is easy to see why sports like Football and Baseball are extremely popular. The wrestling culture is a unique one that is not for everybody. Ultimately, we are behind in the numbers game which takes away some of the attention that our kids should be getting. While the depth may not always be there, our top kids can compete with the best kids in the country. I have had the privilege to watch and coach multiple Nevada kids to National Championships and All-American statuses. Some of my fondest Team Nevada moments include: Andrew Berreyesa finally claiming his stop sign by dominating everyone at Fargo, Ty Smith being down 6-0 in the National Finals and showing some of that Mesquite toughness to come back and win, Connor Bourne winning 8 straight matches to AA at Fargo, Billy Sullivan throwing every person for 5 and claiming OW of Fargo, Morgan Norris pinning in the semis of Fargo to make the finals, Sterling Dias’ multiple National titles, and countless other matches, where a Nevada kid came out on top against a recognized state powerhouse. Nevada wrestling is a unique community that, while it may not ever have 10,000 wrestling members, will continue to find the diamonds in the rough and produce young men and women who will compete at the highest level. I am grateful to be a part of it. |
