Note: I am not posting this to brag or anything... In fact, I have mixed emotions about this article. I just thought it was interesting...and I don't think I have shared it with CP yet.
I don't think I mentioned this yet, but on the Christmas Day in the sports section of The Hawkeye newspaper, the cover story was a story about my family's wrestling tradition....My grandpa, dad, my brothers and I. 2 big pictures on the front, a couple in the mid (continued from front page) section...on Christmas Day...kind of crazy.
In order to read stories on the internet from The Hawkeye, you have to pay for a subscription. However, they posted the story on Iowa's primary wrestling page/forum/newspaper called The Predicament... therefore I am able to share it with you.
Like I said, I was a bit mixed on this... I felt like with me, they kind of tried looking for went wrong opposed to what went right. I wasn't a 3 time state finalist/state champ like my brother closest to my age, but I did place at state...and I did pin my way through Conference 2 times...and I still hold 3 school records (single season nearfalls, career nearfalls and career pins)... I don't know... Yeah, I had some frustrating shit going on, but I felt the doom and gloom plus being my brother's brother were emphasized pretty heavily. One of the questions I was asked was, "what was it like being Justin Swafford's brother?" I knew exactly what he was getting at...I'm not obtuse... but I didn't give him anything. I just said something like, "oh it was great. He was a fun person to root for because you could literally always count on him to win, no matter who the opponent was, whether it be on the state level or national level. We had a great sibling relationship." My brother was upset because he felt like the majority of what he wanted to be quoted saying about he and I was not used.
I gave such a rambling, stupid interview. I was so anxious and some of the questions were so open-ended. They caught me off guard. There was a point where I felt like I sounded like The Excited Southerner from one of those Adam Sandler albums. Haha.
I like the guy who wrote it, though...He is a nice guy and has always been good to my family. I realize that whatever I perceive in what was written about me was not intended for me to perceive it that way... I mean...it's the media, what am I supposed to expect?
Anyways, here it is:
https://www.thepredicament.com/2016/...ing-tradition/
A family (wrestling) tradition
Posted on January 22, 2016.
By Matt Levins
MEDIAPOLIS — Bob Swafford had it all planned out, or so he thought.
Swafford, who was a pretty fair basketball player during his day at Oakville High School, envisioned his three sons — twins Brian and Kevin, as well as Mark, a year younger — would be basketball players for Mediapolis High School. They would follow in their father’s footsteps and, if things worked out, maybe, just maybe, they would make up 60 percent of the Bulldogs’ starting lineup in the middle and late 1970s.
But one sentence from then Mediapolis wrestling coach Ron Crooks forever changed the course of history. Crooks noticed that Brian and Kevin Swafford were not happy with their roles as bench players on the Mediapolis junior high basketball team, so he approached Brian one day at school.
“Why don’t you give wrestling a try?” Crooks asked Swafford.
And with that, a wrestling legacy was born.
Kevin, Brian and Mark Swafford each went on to become state wrestling qualifiers for the Bulldogs over the course of the next five years. The Swafford brothers had a collective 157-56 record and each qualified for state once. In 1977, Kevin became the first wrestler in Mediapolis history to win a match at state, breaking the barrier and setting the standard for those who followed.
Now, nearly 40 years later, the last of the Swafford clan is making their way through the Mediapolis wrestling program. Shea and Brennan Swafford, the youngest of Mark and Jacinta Swafford’s four sons, are coming off state tournament appearances last season and both are ranked in the top four at their respective weight class.
Shea, a senior, and Brennan, a sophomore, are following in the footsteps of their older brothers, Justin and Josh, who wrestled for the Bulldogs more than a decade ago.
What started out as a dream to have a family of basketball players instead turned into a wrestling legacy for Mediapolis. Wrestling has become a family tradition for the Swaffords, something which brings the family together and something which has been passed down from one generation to another, and soon another.
And it all started with one sentence from Crooks some 40 years ago.
“My older brothers went out for wrestling their freshman year. I went out for basketball my eighth-grade year. They were bringing all these wrestling moves home and, playing basketball, I was the sixth man. I never got in the game until there was 30 seconds left. I thought, ‘This is no fun.’ I quit basketball halfway through my eighth-grade year and went out for basketball. So my brothers kind of influenced me. It kind of fell into place. I remember I won my first match and it kind of came easy for me to a degree. It was difficult, but it flowed for whatever reason,” said Mark Swafford, who was 50-26-3 during his high school career, qualifying for the state tournament in 1978.
“I think one of their teammates talked them into it. One of the wrestlers told them,’ You’re wasting your time with this basketball stuff. Come out for wrestling.’ So they went ahead and swapped and went out for wrestling. The next thing you know they’re practicing moves and home and I’m sitting there going, ‘Hey, can I try that?’
“My dad (Bob) played basketball for Oakville. He graduated in the 1950s. He didn’t like it at all until he went to his first wrestling meet. Then he was hooked. He really wanted me to play basketball. When I quit he kind of pouted about it to a degree. I think he was kind of disappointed. But before that first season was over, as a parent, he was hooked. He was all in.”
“I remember the twins went out for basketball in middle school and they were sitting on the bench a lot. They weren’t very happy,” said Joyce Swafford, Bob’s widow. “Ron Crooks asked Brian to give wrestling a try. Brian went to practice and it was a lot of fun. He went to New London for a meet and he won his first match and he came back and told Kevin it was the most fun he had had in a long time. Well, that was the start of it. Kevin joined up and not long after that Mark was wrestling.”
As for the current generation of Swaffords, well, they know a little bit about the family history. But they’re more focused on the now. Shea and Brennan are trying to make their own mark, both on the program and the family legacy. As for Josh and Justin, well, they are Shea and Brennan’s biggest fans. They would love nothing more than to see their two little brothers erase the marks they made over a decade ago, to push that bar a little farther and a little higher.
“Crazy would be the number one word for it. Honestly, I wouldn’t want to grow up anywhere else. My dad can be a jerk sometimes, but it’s for the better. It’s teaching me responsibility. I wouldn’t be in the sport without him, I don’t think. He’s the one that got me introduced to it,” said Shea Swafford, who is 10-0 and ranked second in Class 2A at 132 pounds. “I remember Justin wrestling at UNI. My earliest memory was at a high school meet. I don’t remember Justin wrestling, but I remember Chad Hutchinson and the Kellers. I remember hanging out with them and hanging out with Russ Hutchinson and going to Chuck E. Cheese afterwards. Other than that, I don’t really remember much.”
“They’re pretty good. Josh is like the intense one. When I was in the little kids club, he was screaming on the mat, telling me to do stuff. Justin was like the technician. He would teach me to do things the correct way. That definitely helped a lot coming into high school. I can’t wrestle with Josh as much because he’s way bigger than me. But I’ll be there by my senior year. But I can wrestle with Justin now. But he still beats my butt,” said Brennan Swafford, who is 8-2 and ranked fourth at 138. “I know Justin was a state champion and Josh placed sixth. Mt Dad and my uncles, Kevin and Brian, they were all state qualifiers. They never really had the chance to do the little kids club stuff or they probably would have been really, really good. They started in junior high or even freshmen in high school and they still made it to state. That’s pretty amazing.”
“Whatever little bits of wisdom I can impart on them, I’m going to do my best and make sure they stay the course and make sure they’re balanced individuals and have a good work ethic. I think they’re already well on their way to that. It’s exciting to see them grow into that,” said Justin Swafford, 31, who works in marketing for the website company Hibu, doing website consultations, proofing and editing in Iowa City. “(Shea and Brennan) are starting to catch up to me size-wise. They’re definitely in better shape than me today. I sit in a corporate job, sitting on my butt and then I get out there and wrestle, it took it’s toll on me.
“I’m hoping this year to get back in shape and work out with them since they’re getting to that size where I can instruct more. I want to show them the kind of techniques I wish I knew when I was their age. I want to give them a little more of the hands-on instruction that is well needed.”
“It’s very comparable to watching Justin wrestle growing up. With me being 14 years older than Shea and 16 years older than Brennan, I feel like I’m not their father, but I play kind of a fatherly role with the age difference. Since I have two daughters, I feel like this is the closest I’ll be to watching my sons wrestle because I’m not really counting on having sons at this point,” said Josh, 33, who lives in Mediapolis and works at U.S. Gypsum with his father. “It’s real neat. I have a real good relationship with both of them. I think by the time Brennan is done growing he may be comparable to my size. But for whatever reason I’m bigger than all three of my brothers.”
Over the course of the last 39 years, Mediapolis head coach Dan Cummings has had the pleasure of coaching all seven Swaffords. Cummings was an assistant coach for two seasons under Crooks before taking over as head coach 37 years ago. Cummings coached Kevin and Brian Swafford their senior years and Mark Swafford his junior and senior seasons. He has come full circle now. He coached Josh and Justin all four years, is in his fourth year of coaching Shea and his second season coaching Brennan.
While Cummings sees many similarities in all of the Swaffords, he also knows that each has become his own individual. They have provided plenty of pleasant memories through the years, moments Cummings reflects on as he watches the final two Swafford cut their own swath through the program.
“The Swaffords have always been a family of wrestlers. Mark, Brian and Kevin were really, really good wrestlers. They were part of that 1977 team which was a really, really good team. We qualified six kids for state that season,” said Cummings, who also had the pleasure of coaching his own three sons — Jamey, Ryan and Brandon. “I remember when Mark told me that he was going to have another kid. It was almost like having two families with the big gap they had between the first two and the last two. They are all really good wrestlers, yet they are all their own persons.”
Mark and Jacinta’s four sons have made a huge impact on the program through the years. Through the Cedar Rapids Xavier Duals, the second generation of Swaffords has a combined 485-107 record, eight state medals and one state championship — Justin was the Class 2A state champion at 125 pounds in 2002.
One of the special moments for the Swafford came in 2001, when Justin finished as a state runner-up and Josh placed sixth at state. It was a moment none will forget, except Shea and Brennan, who were too young to remember.
“My wife and I were sitting together. I’ll never forget it,” Mark Swafford said. “t’s something you never dream of. (Justin) was so close the two years before he was in the finals. When it finally happened … it’s hard to explain how you feel. The main thing I felt was happy for Justin because he deserved that. He was such a hard-working, dedicated wrestler. There are a lot of kids in his class that didn’t there own thing. Justin was the only one who was still working while all his buddies were out having fun. He sacrificed so much in what I felt was overwhelming joy for him. Not for me. Not for the program. For Justin, for all the hard work.
“I felt really glad that he got his due. He sacrificed a lot. He was driving to Iowa City and working out with the Future Hawkeye Wrestling Club. That was new back then. That was a new concept. (Josh) struggled a little bit. He had tremendous talent. He could beat just about anybody in the room. Then he would take his anxieties out on the mat. It was hard to watch sometimes. He had all this talent and he put so much pressure on himself. But he got through it. He pinned the first two kids at state and got his medal. That was something I was pretty happy for him, too, because he was struggling with all these anxiety issues. He had sports anxiety.”
The family’s other treasured moment came last February, when both Shea and Brennan made it to the Class 2A state semifinals, helping the Bulldogs win their first state team championship. Only this time, Mark was sitting in the corner instead of watching from the stands. He left that to Josh, Justin and Jacinta. It was a scintillating evening, although Mark isn’t sure he wants to be in the corner if or when either makes to the state finals. At that point, he would rather be a dad than a coach.
“I didn’t have my coaching authorization when the two older ones went to state. Maybe I just need to be the kids club coach and back off. Then I wonder if it would benefit these kids if I sought my coaching authorization and I was in the room. I don’t regret that at all. I’m glad I did make that change. It’s been a special treat for me to sit in the corner at Wells to coach some of their matches. That’s kind of a dream come true. If either one of these two would get lucky enough to win a state title, I don’t know if I’m going to coach in the corner. I think I’d rather be a Dad, to be honest. In a moment like that they don’t need emotion. They need coaches that are focused,” Mark said.
Of course growing up, both sets of boys were best friends and competitors at the same time. That created more than a few interesting moments in the Swafford household from time to time.
“I looked up to him a lot. We had our spats, but there is a lot of love and respect, too. With Joshua, he liked to kind of dictate what was going on. He was always bending the rules. He’s that kind of guy. But that made me who I was and it made me tougher. That type of big-brother mentality is a competitive thing. It elevates you. We were best allies and best enemies, depending on the day and if there was food in between us,” Justin said of Josh. “He muscled me quite a bit. If we wrestled, I could kind of get him tired to where I could kind of go with him. I always had more of an engine that wouldn’t stop. In the wrestling room there was a little less pressure and he usually had a little more steam. He had exercise-induced asthma. A lot of that was stress, too. We scrapped a little bit in the room, but mostly it was being each other’s biggest fans, on and off the mat. I think that still holds true.”
“It’s like a squirrel fight. That’s the best way to explain it. We don’t really get in fights at home. The No. 1 place we get in fights is in that room,” Shea said. “Really what we have at home is an elliptical. That’s all we have for a workout. Other than that you have to make your own workouts. Tom and Terry Brands used to do shots on the wall. They used to do shots on each other in the living room. Sometimes you have to resort to that.”
And of course with a house full of wrestlers, someone had to be there to be the glue. That person is Jacinta, who was there to support both her husband and her sons every step of the way.
“I’m glad I’ve had her. She’s been one of the most understanding individuals. Really supportive of the kids. Mama Swaff knows what it takes to get the kids through it and to get me through it, too. It’s been a blessing having this particular woman as my wife and mother of these kids. I just can’t picture ever going through it without her support,” Mark Swafford said. “She’s the one that stops at the store and gets the pineapple and watermelon and muskmelon and the grapes and cuts them all up into pieces and makes sure they have their shrimp or their grilled chicken. She’s been a big part of it, too.”
There are still 2 1/2 more years of wrestling left at Mediapolis for the Swafford family. There have been plenty of other influential families through the storied history of Mediapolis wrestling, but the Swafford have left their mark. And they aren’t finished yet. Not by a long shot.
“It’s pretty satisfying seeing all the hard work they put into it is coming to fruition, especially Shea. Nothing has come easy for him. Sometimes he’ll have a blowup in practice, which is unfortunate. It’s all because of frustration. But if he keeps pushing through it, it’ll come back. To see the kids work really hard and then watch the results to me is fairly satisfying. Knowing the tradition of our family. Their uncle Kevin was the very first Mediapolis wrestler to win a match at state. I’ve reminded them a time or two — look where this program was when Cummings took over and look where it is now. They’ve been a part of that. That’s pretty refreshing for them,” Mark Swafford said.
“Mark has been a big part of what we have done through the years at Mediapolis, no doubt about that,” Cummings said. “I can’t imagine there not being a Swafford involved in the Mediapolis program. When you talk about Mediapolis wrestling, one of the names you always think about is Swafford. They have definitely had a huge impact on our program.”