Texas phenom Pierce has lofty ambitions

If this were an ideal Western legend, the town of Allen would lie deep in the heart of Texas, and feature tumbleweeds dancing across very dusty and empty streets.

Oliver Pierce

Alas, Allen is, in fact, an affluent northern suburb of Dallas not too far from the Oklahoma border, and is growing annually in leaps and bounds. But I digress ...

Far from the wrestling hotbeds of Illinois, Iowa, Ohio and Pennsylvania, there lives a boy whose athletic resume stacks up with just about any high school freshman, a kid whose wrestling and football exploits earned him a recent spot in the June issue of Sports Illustrated for Kids.

Oliver Pierce begins his high school wrestling career in mere months with a stated goal of going undefeated and winning four state titles. Very lofty ambitions, to be sure, but what else to shoot for when you've won a USA Wrestling Tripe Crown twice before, when you went up to Fargo for the first time this year and were 135-pound Greco-Roman champ and two-time All-American, when you've been a finalist at Tulsa Nationals six times?

Don't get it twisted, however; this Oliver is very real. He got his start in wrestling when he was six. He saw it on television with his father Geno, who was classmates with T.J. Jaworsky, the first Dan Hodge Trophy winner and three-time NCAA champion from North Carolina, in Oklahoma. Geno had never wrestled himself, but knew he had a competitive son and asked Oliver if he wanted to try it out.

Oliver Pierce

The timing could not have been better. Wrestling has only been an official high school sport in Texas since 1998. And, as luck would have it, Jerry Best had moved into the area and was just beginning the Allen Eagles youth wrestling program. Best, a former wrestler at Oklahoma State and a three-time NCAA (Division II) champion at Central Oklahoma, threw himself into the project. Oliver's potential became quickly apparent -- he won a kiddie state title his first year.

"(Oliver) was just a real focused little kid,” Coach Best recalled. "He was very driven, worked harder than anyone else in the room. He'd pick up technique real fast, go home on his own and drill it over and over again."

Winning became a habit for young Oliver, who has since racked up national, state and tournament titles by the handful while developing a bond with Best, his future high school coach at Allen. All of which should make Oliver's transition from grade school to high school wrestling that much more seamless.

"It takes a lot of wrestlers a while to get used to new coaches," Coach Best said. "We've been around each other for a long time, so it shouldn't be a big transition for him."

"Coach Best has taught him everything that he knows," Geno adds. "He's very intense and has high demands on the kid, but they have a super relationship."

So what has made for this unlikely success story, what allowed a typical Texas star quarterback to excel so thoroughly on a national level with this other, less-popular endeavor?

"One, he has got incredible athleticism," Geno said, "and two, he's a very serious, driven kid. And when you combine that with great coaching, it's the perfect storm."

Oliver Pierce (Photo/Wyatt Schultz)

Though Coach Best says it is still to be determined, Oliver expects to wrestle in high school at either 140 or 145 this year, depending on team needs.

When he's not working on his conditioning or drilling new moves, Oliver's scouring Flowrestling and YouTube for videos of his favorite collegiate and national team wrestlers.

"I like watching Brett Metcalf wrestle," Oliver said. "He never gives up anything easy, he's one of the toughest wrestlers. He'll grind it out and," he adds with a slight chuckle, "he's mean, too."

That kind of physical, aggressive attitude is what Best says Oliver needs to increase in order to take the next step in his development.

For his part, Oliver knows that he has things to work on -- like an over-reliance on his signature shot (a low single to the left) -- if he wants to stay atop the medal stand. "Sometimes I get conservative when I wrestle (with a lead)," he says. "I gotta open up more and not worry as much about the score, because it'll take care of itself ... but that can be fixed."

Oliver Pierce

Both Best and Geno Pierce agree that while the sport is growing in Texas, the organization and leadership in the state wrestling ranks could be better and needs to get on the same page.

"We have lots of talent," Geno Pierce said. "Our problem is that Texas is so large and the talent has been diffused so much over the state. We've had some issues with our state organization ... we've got some quality kids, we just got to get them exposure."

Traveling to Fargo and winning Cadet National titles will make people pay attention. So don't be surprised if a nice trail gets beaten down to Texas in the next few years by college coaches, seeking out a legend but instead discovering a trailblazer.

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Texas phenom Pierce has lofty ambitions

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