Photo by Rob Saye

Some things in life you can take for granted. Then there’s the Jefferson High wrestling team. If you’re a wrestling fan from the small town about 12 miles northwest of Athens, it’s a good thing. For wrestling fans everywhere else… not so much.
How good coach Doug Thurmond’s Jefferson wrestling team is year in, year out is not the question. The question should be: “How great are the Dragon grapplers decade after decade?” Before 2000, Jefferson had won a respectable four state titles.
That’s pretty good, but since 2001, Jefferson has won every state championship possible. That season, they won the state title in Class A. For the next seven years, they won both the traditional (tournament style) title and the dual (meet format) crown. In 2009, the Dragons moved up to Class 2A and did the same. With a win in this week’s traditional tournament and next week’s dual meet event, Jefferson will be beginning a second decade of dominance. For his efforts, Thurmond has been named Georgia’s Coach of the Year four times.

A FAMILY AFFAIR …
The freight train doesn’t seem to be headed for a slowdown anytime soon. Sure, the Dragons did not return all of last year’s seven individual state champions, as only four are on this year’s roster. They are led by the Thurmond’s second son, Casey, a senior. The younger Thurmond is just handful of matches from finishing with four individual state titles. Two other seniors, Cain Finch and Zach Allen, already won two state titles each.
Of course, high school wrestling is a team sport, and the Jefferson squad is flat-out dominant in almost every weight class. They finished the dual meet season undefeated with 35 wins. Pity the last three teams to wrestle against Jefferson on Jan. 25, when Dunwoody, Lakeside-Dekalb and St. Pius X lost to Jefferson in a quad meet by an average of 67-8. Of the 12 weight classes, 10 boys won each of their three matches.

SPEED BUMPS …
The biggest issue for this year’s team to repeat in both categories appears to be the tournament schedule. Although Jefferson is solid from 103 lbs. all the way to 285, all wrestlers must qualify for the traditional state meet. Therefore, there is no guarantee that every wrestler will be making the trip to the traditional tournament. (The state dual meet championship was scheduled for the middle of January, but Georgia’s snow and ice problems forced postponement). Now, the state duals have been pushed to next weekend. This presents a challenge for some wrestlers to remain sharp.
“We hope to keep all of them with us and keep everybody pretty much focused,” Coach Thurmond told MainStreet Newspapers. “It’s hard to focus for some of them at this point because, if they’re not going with us (for the traditional tournament), they’re not getting to compete and they just have to practice (then be ready for state duals). But, you hope that they’re focused enough to do that for team purposes.”
Obviously, it doesn’t appear that a week of snow will derail Jefferson. The team is a pipeline that starts before many of the boys enter kindergarten. Casey started wrestling in the Jefferson USA Kids program when he was four. Following him and his two-time state champion older brother Cam in their hand-me-down wrestling shoes are two younger Thurmonds, Tanner and Tyson. Unlike in some organizations, there is definite synergy between the youngest wrestlers and the seniors on the high school team, as Coach Thurmond was the architect of the youth program. There is no doubt he continues to watch closely. When he talks about his four boys he could be saying the same for all the kids in singlets. “They are all wrestlers,” said Thurmond to the Athens Banner-Herald. “They have been little mat rats since they were little bitty guys. They grew up around it so much."
Wrestling fans in Class 2A can expect Jefferson to continue to dominate. Their best hope may be that the population of Jefferson continues to grow, and 3A teams will soon be trying to get out of the way of the Jefferson freight train.