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Cooper Haase signs a commemorative picture frame as his mother Shanel Davidson-Haase looks on at the Orange Belt Conference awards ceremony in May. Haase, a four-time state wrestling champion at Osceola High, was also the OBC’s Male Athlete of the Year. PHOTO/KEN JACKSON
Osceola’s Cooper Haase capped off his high school wrestling career in style in March’s Class 3A state championship. With a first period pin over Riverdale’s Alex Soto, who came into the tournament with a 50-1 record, Haase performed a backflip before jubilantly jumping into the arms of Osceola coaches one last time.
The match capped off a 49-1 state championship season for Haase — he won OBC, district and regional titles to go with a win in the prestigious Knockout Christmas Classic and several other tournaments. He finished the season in the top 10 of several national high school wrestling ranking services and matched legendary Osceola standout Fox Baldwin as the only wrestler in school history to win four state championships.
Although there were many other talented athletes to be considered, Haase is the Osceola News Gazette’s Athlete of the Year for the 2022-23.
“A well-deserved honor for an absolutely incredible athlete,” Osceola wrestling coach and Athletic Director Rick Tribit said. “I’m really not one to talk about greatest of all time because that is really subjective and has a lot of it has to do with where you are and what you saw. Fox and Coop each won four state championships. Fox may have more impressive credentials at the national and international level, but Cooper maybe was a little better with his hands and had an ‘it’ factor. You could make a strong argument either way when you are talking about the best ever. At the end of the day, I would call them 1A and 1AA as the best in school and county history and I am not sure which is which in that ranking.”
Haase’s only loss of the season came to West Allegheny’s Ty Watters in the finals of the prestigious Powerade Tournament in December. Watters finished the year ranked third in the nation.
The recently-graduated Haase leaves Osceola with fond memories, having grown up in the school’s youth wrestling program.
“I started when I was like five or six and the school has been part of me for almost my entire life,” Haase said. “I vividly remember the first workouts in the old wrestling room where you had to climb rope to the top to get a Popsicle. I could barely get halfway up but was determined to eventually get to the top. Even back then it was that experience that basically shaped me. When I was finally able to, I just set my sights on the next challenge.”
The ultra-competitive Haase said that the competition regardless of the activity is what spurred him to be the best and he credits his teammates for a lot of his individual success.
“Before wrestling practices our warm-ups usually consisted of a basketball or volleyball game. Those games got pretty physical because we all wanted to win. Being around teammates the last four years that all had the same mindset certainly helped.”
Haase’s next challenge will come at the collegiate level. He was accepted into the West Point Military Academy (Army), where he will spend the next year at the Academy’s Prep School, essentially a redshirt year. For the first time since those early years in Osceola youth wrestling program, he knows he is no longer the top dog.
“I am so excited to get started,” Haase said. “It’s whole different world at that level. There’s a whole room full of guys that have the same or better credentials. Most of them were multiple state champions and I fully expect to get my butt kicked that first year by the older guys. My goal will be the learn from that experience and simply try to get bigger, faster, stronger and smarter.”
Other quality Athlete of the Year candidates included multi-sport athletes Alex Tuyo (Harmony) and Jevon Andrew-Brown (Tohopekaliga), St. Cloud weightlifter Mike Ziss, Osceola running back Taevion Swint, and Celebration volleyball star Darion Graham.
Tuyo deserves special mention as he was named to the News-Gazette’s All-County team in three different sports. He was a standout kicker for the Longhorns football team, the top goal scorer for the soccer team and a state qualifier in track in the hurdles.
Just a sophomore, Ziss won two state weightlifting crowns for the Bulldogs, taking the traditional and Olympic style titles at 110 pounds. Swint was an running back all-state selection and his 1,600 rushing yards and 20 touchdowns helped lead Osceola to the 7A state semifinals. Andrew-Brown was a basketball, volleyball and track standout and Graham led the Storm to OBC, district and regional championships in volleyball and was one of the top players in the state.
Check out next week’s Osceola News-Gazette for the Female Athlete of the Year.
