Wrestlers are champs, like Joe Day

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Wrestlers are champs, like Joe Day

Sports

Thursday, 25 February 2010 02:31

Rick Pedone
Sports Editor
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What a weekend of highs and lows around here.
On the high side, what about three Osceola County wrestlers winning back-to-back state championships?
Are you kidding? Used to be, merely having a state qualifier was news.
Osceola High’s Joe Locksmith (135 pounds) and Levi Clemons (171), and St. Cloud’s Frank Cousins (160), planted themselves among the all-time greats not only in Osceola County, but in the state of Florida, after winning for the second straight year Saturday at the Lakeland Center.
In all, 19 county wrestlers went to Lakeland last weekend, representing six of the county’s seven big public high schools.
Osceola High’s Pete Baldwin (140) and Gabriel Bird (145) reached the finals and came within seconds of winning their championship matches before suffering last-second setbacks.
Another wrestler with county roots, Lake Highland Prep’s Fox Baldwin, Pete’s brother, continued an amazing career by reaching the Class A 112-pound finals and nearly upending a two-time state champion in the title match. Fox is in the seventh grade and has already won 119 matches in two varsity seasons. Pete Baldwin, a 2008 state champ at 119 pounds, and Gabe Bird are five-time state qualifiers.
Pete Baldwin Sr., the Baldwin brothers’ father, called Bird the best wrestler in Florida history who never won a state championship. Bird finished his career with 260 varsity wins.
That’s possible. It’s not a title coveted by any wrestler who worked as long and as hard as Bird has over the past decade, through countless hours of grueling mat work as an elementary school, middle school and high school student.
But Bird typifies what high school wrestlers are about. He’s hard-working to a point that those outside the wrestling fraternity just can’t understand, and he is an honor student who has earned a wrestling scholarship to Liberty University. In short, he isn’t much different from most of the county’s high school wrestlers.
As a group, I’ll put the wrestlers at the top of the pyramid of what high school sports are about.
You can’t succeed in wrestling without dedication, courage and perseverance that is rare in today’s society.
The sport is strong in Osceola County because we are blessed with an exceptional group of coaches, many of whom can stand alongside the best in the nation for their expertise.
Osceola’s Jim Bird and Rick Tribit and Celebration’s Vic Lorenzano are in or soon will be inducted into the Florida Chapter of the Wrestling Hall of Fame.
Poinciana’s Buckie Wells, Liberty’s Eric Scrivens, Harmony’s Chris Todd, Celebration’s Rick Wiggins and Gateway’s Jon Smorin all are elevating their programs and producing standout wrestlers of their own. Nine county wrestlers, plus Fox Baldwin, received medals at the state tournament.
There are a lot of things that need fixing in Osceola County, but high school wrestling isn’t one of them.
Maybe the rest of us can catch up.
...
It doesn’t get any lower than the way we felt after hearing of the loss of Joe Day, one of Osceola County’s true difference makers, last weekend.
Day, 58, passed away Sunday morning after suffering a heart attack.
Few individuals have touched more young lives than Day, who for 25 years worked to establish and fund youth sports teams in Buenaventura Lakes.
He founded the Osceola Family Sports Association and, despite the parental responsibilities of raising eight children, he dedicated himself to making things better for other children growing up around him.
His legacy will carry on long after most of us are gone in the form of productive young adults who learned valuable lessons about teamwork and leadership while participating in the programs that Day founded.
There aren’t many great men in the world; there is one less today.