CLAREMONT — In the early 1960s, Stevens High School not only had a wrestling team, it had a state champion in Dick Nelson, a man who can still be seen around the city and who is always at Barnes Park for the Cardinals’ football games.
However, that brief glimpse of a sport that thrives in other communities has not been seen on the Stevens interscholastic schedule since.
But there has recently been a spark of hope that may someday result in the sport’s revitalization. That flicker of hope comes from freshman Colby Shepard and his father, Joe.
Colby is Stevens’ one-man wrestling team this season, and his father is the coach.
“My Stevens singlet arrived just today,” Colby said on Wednesday.
The road to putting a team together is a long and bumpy one, but one that both the Shepards and Stevens athletic director Doug Beaupre are willing to travel.
“Doug has been really supportive of the whole idea,” said Joe Shepard, who is a 1995 Newport High graduate and a past member of the Tigers’ wrestling team.
In the meantime, the younger Shepard is hanging around with the Newport squad and will be with them for all of their practices and meets.
“When I go to meets, I have to tell the other teams that I am a Stevens wrestler and hope they let me take part,” said Colby, who weighs in at around 154 pounds.
Colby’s father admits that he was a so-so wrestler and can do some things to help his son, but he is grateful for the help he gets from Newport’s coaches.
Colby can thank his dislike for basketball for helping generate his love of wrestling.
“He came home from a youth basketball practice and told me, ‘Dad, I don’t like basketball,’ Joe recalled. “I then asked him if he would like to try wrestling.”
“I’ve been hooked since,” said Colby, who not only likes the physical aspects, “but you have to be in great shape, and there is a lot of thinking to do. You have to be tough. and you have to be smart.”
Since Colby got the wrestling bug, he has won events while in the younger grades. He heads on Saturday to Con-Val for his first high school match, an invitational with several other schools.
“We’ll be wrestling from 8:30 in the morning until around 3 in the afternoon,” Colby said. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
What the Shepards and Beaupre hope is that this will be the beginning of establishing wrestling as an interscholastic sport at Stevens.
“That’s the goal,” said Joe Shepard. “Wrestling is a marvelous sport.”
Beaupre certainly agrees and, as athletic director at Newport years ago, was on hand as that program flourished.
“It would be nice if we could see the same thing here,” he said.