Around Osceola
Home Rifes Market
State champions will go their separate ways PDF Print E-mail
Sports
Saturday, 17 April 2010 00:00
By Rick Pedone
Sports Editor
For two seasons they were teammates and shared a state championship, but after graduation next month, Osceola High wrestlers Gabriel Bird, Levi Clemons and Joe Locksmith will take different paths to college.
They gathered with their families Wednesday at the OHS media center for a signing ceremony that brought to an end the high school careers of three of the program’s all-time greats.
Clemons and Locksmith had previously announced their college choices: Clemons will join former OHS teammates Niko Brown and Alex Eggers at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga; Locksmith will enter the U.S. Naval Academy in late June and compete for the Midshipman wrestling team.
Bird decided recently to attend Liberty University, in Lynchburg, Va., surprising many who assumed that he would join Clemons at UTC because Bird’s older brother, Javier Maldonado, became an All-American wrestler at Chattanooga after graduating from OHS in 2003.
“At the Super 32 Tournament last winter, I talked to some of the other wrestlers there about it and they had a lot of great things to say about Liberty,” Bird said. “I really hadn’t heard much about it until then, but the more I looked into it, it seemed like a great place for me. It is a faith-based school, something that is important to me, and the program there is very good. I guess I kind of wanted to go down my own path.”
Bird’s father, OHS wrestling coach and athletic director Jim Bird, said his son chose a good program. Liberty, a four-time NCAA East Regional champion, is coached by Jesse Castro.
“Yeah, I know the coaches there, they’re good and it’s a good situation for Gabby,” Coach Bird said. “The important thing was for him to pick a place where he would be happy.”
Bird became the first Osceola County wrestler to place at five state tournaments. He was the runner-up at 152 pounds this year and placed third in 2009 when Osceola won the state championship. Bird competed two years for Life Academy, placing third at 125 pounds as an eighth-grader at the Class A state meet.
“I don’t think that’s going to hold up for long, though,” Gabriel Bird said with a grin.
Pete Baldwin, who will be a senior at OHS next season, has competed at five state tournaments, placing at four, and is considered a favorite to win his second state championship next season. He won in 2008 as a freshman and was a runner-up in 2009 and 2010. Baldwin’s younger brother, Fox Baldwin, has already placed at two state tournaments and was the state runner-up as a seventh-grader at First Academy.
Locksmith, who won the 135-pound state championship in February, and Clemons, the 171-pound champ, became the first OHS wrestlers ever to win back-to-back state titles. St. Cloud’s Frank Cousins also has won state crowns the past two seasons.
Locksmith, who transferred to OHS from Dr. Phillips prior to his junior year, won at 130 pounds last year. Clemons has competed at 171 pounds the past two seasons.
Clemons said when he announced his decision to attend UTC in December that he feels comfortable knowing his former teammates are competing there.
“Knowing the people there makes it easier. We’ve been to camps there and I like that area,” he said. “It’s a family-type atmosphere, like here. As soon as I talked to Coach (Heath) Enslinger, I was sold.”
Clemons, a former USA Wrestling Greco-Roman national champion, plans to work at summer camps at UTC before enrolling next fall.
Locksmith surprised his mother, Mary Anne Locksmith, when he decided several years ago that he wanted to attend the Naval Academy, where he will compete for former U.S. Olympic Team Coach Bruce Burnett.
“I don’t know where that came from. It was something he made up his mind he wanted to do. He wouldn’t even take a trip to another school,” she said.
“I wanted to go there since the seventh grade. I knew that if I wanted to go to a military academy that I wanted it to be the Naval Academy,” he said.
Locksmith is well aware of the rigorous duty ahead of him during “Plebe Summer,” but he is unfazed.
“It can’t be any tougher than Coach Bird’s program here,” he said.
All three wrestlers are honors students. The OHS wrestling team led all FHSAA programs with a 3.42 team GPA last season.
Coach Bird said coaching Clemons, Locksmith and his son has been rewarding.
“They have worked extremely hard to put themselves in this position. I am proud of them,” he said.
 

Please register
or log in to post comments.