Mr. Drass, a biology teacher at Struthers High School, is starting up a wrestling team this year with big hopes for the future. He hopes that Struthers not only have football, basketball, and baseball, but also wrestling as one of its mainstay sports. Drass believes it is a sport that will help people improve their own lives.
Drass also wrestled in high school and coached at other schools before Struthers. He likes to apply his own more relaxed style of coaching, which he thinks will help out the team of beginner wrestlers. He enjoys having these new wrestlers on his team because they are a blank slate with no bad habits already instilled in them.
The wrestling coach thinks that those with the most work ethic will always be the ones that succeed the most.
“I would say it’s kind of cliche, but hard work will always beat out talent, especially in wrestling. The most talented wrestlers are the hardest working; you will never see a lazy talented wrestler. The main talent you really need in wrestling is hard work, and I think that everyone has that in them,” Drass says.
Drass is both nervous and excited for the future of wrestling at Struthers. Although it is only a test program now, if it succeeds it will become a permanent varsity sport. Though he has to work through the challenges of funding and limited practices, he is still excited to make history with the wrestling program at Struthers.
The first year coach is enjoying both the goods and the bads of making history at Struthers.
“My favorite part is starting it, doing it from the beginning. Sometimes it’s honestly nice coaching people who haven’t wrestled before because there’s no bad habits or tendencies or anything like that. The bad parts are kind of the same as the favorite parts because it’s brand new. We’re practicing at Manor; we’re using old equipment especially because wrestling is an expensive sport to start,” said Drass.
Drass thinks that wrestling is a beneficial sport to the people that play it, being a sport that is all about pushing past adversity, even if that adversity cut-down 30 pounds so they could be in your weight class. In his opinion, it is something that everyone should try out at least once, boost your confidence and help you in everything you do.
As a former wrestler himself, he knows that the mental skills you learn in wrestling can help you everywhere else in your life.
Drass says, “Wrestling is a great sport because it’s all about discipline, hard work, dedication and endurance. It’s not an easy sport. When I was growing up, I was told that if you can finish through a wrestling season you can do anything.”
