Fifteen years ago, the doors of Collins Hill High School first opened and Cliff Ramos had the task of building a wrestling program from the ground up. Now, what was once a humble team of only freshmen and sophomores stands as arguably the most highly regarded program in the state.
After claiming last year’s titles in both traditional wrestling and duals wrestling, the Eagles upheld their impressive reputation as a dynasty in Class 5A. To complement its current reign, the program also hails 13 consecutive season finishes in the state’s top 10 and finished the last nine seasons in Georgia’s top three.
Surely, there must be a secret to fostering such a perennial powerhouse. According to Ramos (who was recently inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame), it simply takes consistency in practice, exposure and support.
“Practice is hard. I mean really hard,” Ramos explains. “Even when it’s not hard, it’s still pretty tough. I’ve actually had some football players who wrestled in the offseason tell me that this is the hardest thing they’ve ever done.”
Even though today’s practices are much more grueling than they were during his first days with the program, Ramos still emphasizes that teaching is the most important aspect of training. Along with teaching comes an extensive conditioning regimen accompanied by strenuous strength exercises and live wrestling.
Given these tactics and the presence of five experienced assistant coaches, the Eagles have somewhat of an edge on other programs. Assistant coaches Rich Schumacher, an NCAA All-American wrestler and the 1970 Division I National Champion, and ’96 Collins Hill graduate Jim Gassman, who became a National Collegiate Wrestling Champion with the University of Georgia Wrestling Club, make the Eagles staff one of the best around.
“All I know is that I have five great assistant coaches,” Ramos says. “Three or four of them would easily be head coaches at any other school.”
Among these great coaching personalities are even better role models. Eagle wrestlers have the talent and opportunities to compete at the next level and find the benefits in taking direction from a Hall of Famer as well as from two other decorated college wrestlers.
In addition to building an experienced coaching staff, the man in charge mentions that he seeks out challenging opponents for his team, which he says gives his wrestlers a better shot at catching the eye of college scouts and recruiters.
THE PRESENT
With the team’s most recent tournament victory over South Dade County (at the Cleveland Duals in Tennessee) Collins Hill now ranks first in the Southeast region.
Other upcoming tournaments include a trip to the Midwest Wrestling Classic in Kansas City (just before the Christmas Holiday) and the Clash National Duals in Minnesota.
Ramos anticipates that these will be the team’s toughest meets to date this season. “We’ll see how we do in Minnesota on New Year’s,” he says. “It’s the best duals meet in the country.”
It is no surprise that a program like Ramos’s grooms its wrestlers for the next level. As proof, members of last season’s championship team now compete at Gardner-Webb and Stanford. In fact, senior Taylor Knapp, a back-to-back, first-place state finisher, has already committed to wrestle collegiately at Virginia Tech.
As a future Division I wrestler, he now becomes part of a long-standing Eagles tradition comprised of talented athletes and great leaders.
The title of team captain does not exist in this setting. “We don’t do it like that here,” Ramos says. “We have 75 kids on the team and they know who to look up to. I look for them to sense who the leaders are without me telling them.”
It only seems natural that Knapp, along with 2008 second-place finishers Joel Smith, Garry Tiller, Nick Smith and David Coffey, make up the unnamed leadership.
Strong leadership and great support are the bread and butter of any successful program. For the Eagles, those attributes are what make the Eagles a dynasty.
From an incredible booster club and encouraging parents, some things have changed over the years, but others will always remain the same.
For Ramos, practice will always make perfect (or at least really, really close to perfect) and a ninth grader winning his first match will always mean just as much as the varsity team winning a state title.
After starting a program from nothing, Ramos remembers the spirit that got his program where it is today.
“There was a lot of enthusiasm back then and there still is today,” he says.
The difference?
“There is just more pressure on us now because people expect us to be at the top.”
Mann can be reached at christamann@gmail.com.
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