Christopher Shelton
Stillwater High’s Chris Perry had one of the most successful high school wrestling careers the state has ever seen.
In 133 matches, he lost only one, but Oklahoma State wrestling coach John Smith remembers when his Pioneer nephew wasn’t rolling the competition.
“(Chris) struggled in youth wrestling for a while, and I asked him how his season was going one year, and he told me he was redshirting — at 10, I think he was,” Smith said, chuckling. “And he did. He took a redshirt year.”
But Chris came a long way from that rough year.
In the 87 years of state high school wrestling before this past season, only 19 wrestlers won state titles all four years of their high school careers.
On Feb. 28, Chris became the 23rd — having wrestled after the other three who joined the list that Saturday. His only loss as a Stillwater Pioneer came near the end of his freshman year in 2006. He lost in the regional tournament but avenged the loss a week later, beating that same opponent at the state tournament.
Chris has signed to wrestle for his uncle at OSU next year. He’s a hot item in the wrestling world, as he is the top-ranked 189-pounder in the nation. He’s reached the top of the top as a high school competitor, but he had help getting there.
The family business
Wrestling is in the Perry blood. His father, Mark, 47, was a two-time All-American and two-time Big Eight champion at OSU. He was an assistant coach at Nebraska for seven years and is an assistant coach for SHS.
His brother, Mark, 24, was a two-time national champion and four-time All-American at Iowa and is an assistant coach at Penn State.
And then there’s Smith’s decorated career, which includes being a six-time world champion and two-time NCAA champion and leading the Cowboys to five NCAA titles through a 266-35-4 coaching record.
Chris has been so surrounded by mat success that fate nearly mandated he would reach the levels of competition he has.
He started wrestling when he was about 3 or 4 years old, but has been on the mat as long as he can remember just playing around.
“I took my beatings, not knowing what I was doing yet, but every wrestler’s taken theirs,” he said.
Every boy who’s grown up with a brother has wrestled a few unofficial matches at home through squabbles and boredom, but add to the equation that both Perry boys actually were wrestlers and you can bet they’ve spent a good share of time on the ground with each other.
“Growing up, we used to always go watch the NCAA tournaments, and we definitely had our favorite guys and try to act like them and wrestle those matches or NCAA matches,” Chris said. “Like, if the finals were that night, we would do it that morning like it was the real thing.”
Even now, despite being separated by about 1,200 miles, Chris and his brother talk on the phone anywhere from once to three times a week.
“Depends on how busy he is,” Chris said. “When he was in college, I talked to him a lot more because he would call the house phone a lot, but now that he’s coaching, he has more stuff to take care of between his kids and having a real responsible life as a coach.
“We try to stay in touch here and there, as much as we possibly can.”
In fact, the Perry boys spoke with each other about 10 minutes before Chris delivered a brutal 20-6 major decision to Ponca City’s Blake Rosholt to win his fourth championship.
“He just told me to go out and wrestle and have fun and just wrestle how I wrestle,” Chris said. “That’s what I tried to do.”
All in all, Chris said it’s been a huge advantage to be a member of a wrestling family.
“Just to learn so much that not so many kids at 14 get to learn about positions and techniques,” he said. “Having a family that knows all of that and has been through all that and has been through every level of wrestling you can possibly go through, from high school to the Olympics, it’s definitely something that’s really a big advantage for me.
“Going to see these big events and then showing up there later on in my life, it doesn’t put as much pressure on me, and I feel like I’ve been there before and wrestled them before, even though I haven’t yet.”
The key word is “yet.”
A bright future
Chris will join his uncle’s squad at O-State in the fall, but in the meantime, the Pioneer has plenty of mat action to keep himself busy.
Falling from his 101-match winning streak, Chris lost, 4-3, to Jake Kemerer in the Dapper Dan Wrestling Classic on Sunday. The dual meet, matching up the USA All-Stars and the Pennsylvania All-Stars, was wrestled at the Fitzgerald Field House at the University of Pittsburgh.
Chris will turn right around for a chance to get started on a new streak as he will represent Oklahoma in the Dream Team Classic, pitting Team USA against Team Oklahoma. The meet will be wrestled at Stillwater High Fieldhouse March 28 at 7 p.m.
“When that’s over, there’s really no more free time after that,” Chris said. “I have to get ready for the Junior Worlds. It’s 20 and under; a lot of college guys are in it. It’s actually a big step from high school, even though it will have some high school kids in it.
“Some of the guys that are in college now, I had wrestled as a sophomore, like at a national event, I’ll hit them again. They’ve been in the college rooms for a long time, and it’s going to be a challenge for me to go out and wrestle some of those guys.”
For the next two years, Chris said, he probably won’t have any time off. He’ll head into his redshirt year, and he’ll hit the Junior Worlds again in the summer of 2010. Despite this daunting, nonstop schedule, he said, he doesn’t mind not getting time off.
“Now that I’ll be in college, there’s no football season,” he said. “I didn’t really consider football season time off, but it wasn’t wrestling, always a constant grind for me. It’s something I looked forward to. Time off is like, you need it, but you don’t. There are guys out there who aren’t taking time off either.”
After Chris ripped through his opposition for four years at SHS, the next level at OSU will be a welcome change with greater challenge.
“I’m looking forward to the competition I’m going to get, in that being around a big event like the Nationals, knowing that I have to get to where those guys are,” he said. “And now, I’m looking to beat them. In high school, people were looking to beat me, and now I’m the guy that has to go and beat them. It’s something I have to get ready for. I’m not the top guy anymore. I have to start at the bottom and make my way to the top again.”
Chris’ decision for what college to attend came down quickly to two options: OSU or Penn State. He eventually landed on the OSU side of the fence, and his mother, Cathy, 49 — Coach Smith’s sister — couldn’t have been happier.
“I made no qualms. I wanted him to stay closer to home,” she said. “Our oldest was at Iowa, and it was a good experience, and we enjoyed being a part of that wrestling family there. But there were times during Mark’s career — through injury or illness or a loss here or a loss there — that you just kind of wish you were a little bit closer.
“I would find myself telling Mark (Sr.), ‘He’s a senior, you need to go down and maybe spend a few days with him.’ It will be nice to have Chris a little closer. If issues come up that always do when kids are in college, we can be here, or he can come home if he needs to.”
Chris will add to a growing legacy his family is making at OSU and in collegiate wrestling.
“It’s not by accident that somebody does something special, and Chris winning four championships is not by accident,” Smith said. “While kids are on vacation and kids are worried about making money to buy new wheels for their cars, Chris is training.
“He trained all summer, he prepares for freestyle tournaments and he’s earned his championships. Nobody laid down for him, it was a lot of effort on his part to prepare himself and make himself ready.”
