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A Sporting Chance
Grappling for Perfection
By Brian Knavish
Canon-McMillan senior Colin Johnston
was just days removed from winning his
fourth consecutive WPIAL wrestling
championship when he paused to look
back on his high school wrestling career.
Being the best wrestler in the WPIAL in
your weight class during your freshman,
sophomore, junior and senior seasons
represents an almost incomprehensible
accomplishment. Only 15 other grapplers had
achieved a similar feat before Johnston beat
Hempfield’s Jack Bachman 9-3 in the finals of
the WPIAL Class AAA 135-pound
championship match in February.
When asked to reflect on his high school
wrestling years, you might think the first
sentiments to come out of Johnston’s mouth
would be words of pride or statements
boasting of his successes. Not Colin Johnston.
Johnston’s first words when
asked to look back on his high
school wrestling career: “It didn’t
end the way I wanted it to end,”
he said quite matter-of-factly.
What! The first thing to come to
mind after a high school wrestling
experience that saw him stand with
a WPIAL gold medal draped
around his neck every year was
disappointment?
That’s exactly right. Johnston is
a raw competitor. A perfectionist.
Instead of boasting about his fourth
WPIAL title, he was thinking about the state
championship tournament the following week.
In that competition, Johnston made it to the
semifinals, before losing 2-0 in overtime to
Adam Will of Indian Valley High School.
Johnston battled back to take third place,
hardly something to hang your head about.
But Johnston isn’t about bronze medals. In
his mind, third in the state was more than
enough reason for disappointment (despite the
fact that he had already won a state
championship during his sophomore season).
Others do the boasting for him. “He had
an outstanding career at Canon-Mac,” said
the school’s head coach, Chris Mary. “You’re
lucky if a kid like Colin comes around once
every 10 or 20 years. The coaching staff
and fans are going to miss watching him
wrestle. He was as determined a wrestler as
I’ve ever seen.”
Commenting on his perfectionism is in
no way a knock on Johnston. In fact, it’s
because of this perfectionism that Johnston
was able to win those four titles. It’s that
same “nothing but the best” attitude that will
carry him to future
successes on the
wrestling mats at
West Virginia
University, where he
will enroll next fall.
“He possesses all
the qualities we look
for in a recruit,” says
WVU head coach
Craig Turnbull. “He’s
a good athlete; he’s
had success at all
levels of wrestling.
He’s a good person
who comes from a
fine family.”
Turnbull then
touched on the
famous mental drive of Johnston. “He has a
real passion for wrestling. You can see that
he really loves the sport.”
Photo: Colin Johnston, the
fearsome and fearless
grappler, confronts
every match with
the intention of
wrestling his way into
the record book.
Johnston’s obsession with perfection does
not mean he doesn’t appreciate all that he’s
accomplished. Johnston is proud to join the
exclusive WPIAL Four-Timers club.
“Winning four WPIAL titles was one of
my goals from the beginning,”
says Johnston.
“Now that I’ve done that, it’s a good feeling
to know I’ll be
mentioned with those elite
guys [who did that previously].”
Johnston’s first WPIAL title came as a
freshman at the 103 pound weight
class. As a
sophomore, he claimed the WPIAL and
state crown at 112. Last
season, he won
WPIAL gold at 125.
The pressure of repeating, then
threepeating and, finally, capturing the
fourth one this year was quite intense. “Each
year, it got a little bit harder,” he says. “Once
guys know you’ve won one, they come for
you.” The fact that he was able to excel,
despite being “the hunted,” speaks volumes
about his mental toughness.
After the four-year grind and a senior
season that started in November, most highschool
wrestlers take the weeks and months
following the completion of the season to
rest and get away from the sport.
Again, not Johnston. In March, he
competed in the Dapper Dan Wrestling
Classic in Pittsburgh. In April, he traveled to
Iowa for a national all-star dual meet
tournament, and then to Las Vegas for a
national freestyle wrestling tournament.
While most of us would peg “fun” as our
top priority during the summer between our
senior year of high school and first year of
college, Johnston has a different priority.
“I’ll relax for a little,” he reflects, almost
reluctantly. “But soon it will be time to get
down to WVU and
start training.”
Turnbull
contends that the
“ideal plan” is to
redshirt Johnston
next season to give
him a year to adjust
to college athletics,
academics and
culture, as is
standard with most
freshmen.
Additionally,
WVU has a
national title
contender at the
141-pound class in
Brandon Rader.
With a redshirt, Johnston could still compete
in open tournaments, then wrestle as a
freshman with WVU for the 2009-10 season.
But Johnston has other plans. He hopes
to be in the mix at WVU next season.
“Long term, I want to win EWL
[Eastern Wrestling League] and NCAA
titles,” he says. “That’s my goal.”
That’s a pretty lofty goal for a kid who
has yet to step on a college wrestling mat.
But, then again, this is the same kid who set
a goal of winning four WPIAL titles before
he began high school wrestling.
“He’s hungry for success,” Mary observes.
“He’s a kid with big goals, but I know down
the road he’s going to be wrestling for
NCAA titles. It wouldn’t surprise me if
someday he’s competing to be an Olympian.”
Johnston doesn’t just have the talent to
succeed at the next level of wrestling; he has
the work ethic to do so. Johnston’s four
WPIAL crowns rank him among the greatest
athletes to ever come out of Canon-Mac, and
his achievements came from a blend of talent
and intense hard work.
Don’t be surprised if Johnston lives up to
his lofty goals.
Brian Knavish can be reached via e-mail at
brianknavish@yahoo.com.
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