The school revealed its decision to reinstate the sport -- eliminated after the 1992-93 season -- at an open house event on Sunday. The program will return to the mats during the 2018-19 school year.
Back in the early 1990s, St. Joseph axed the wrestling program because of low participation numbers, especially in the upper weight classes, according to the school's last head wrestling coach, Don Bryner, who has taught English at the school for 36 years.
"At that point I wish we had football because I could always feed off of that," said Bryner, who noted that St. Joseph had since added football to its sports roster, making it easier to recruit multi-sport athletes to participate in wrestling.
"We were a small team. I mean that literally and figuratively," Bryner explained. "We were heavier in the lighter weights. We did what we could do with what we had."
Ron Mazzola, longtime chair of the GMC Wrestling Tournament seeding committee and Region V ranking chairman, said he recalls St. Joseph fielding competitive teams on the mats in the mid to late 1980s before the school's participation numbers in the sport began to decline.
"I knew St. Joe's wrestling when they were really strong and I know that in the early 1990s they canceled the program," Mazzola said.
Now that a successful football program is in place the time appears to be right for wrestling's return to St. Joseph.
"We've been toying with the idea and it's kind of been coming down the road," St. Joseph athletics director Mike Murray said, noting students have expressed an interest in participating in the sport. "There's definitely a percentage of kids in the building who would certainly be willing to pick it up or are interested in picking it up. We want to make sure we are providing everything our kids want to be competing in."
One individual who's eager to see the reinstatement of the wrestling program at St. Joseph is none other than Scott Goodale, head wrestling coach at nearby Rutgers University.
"Any time you can bring wrestling into the curriculum at the high school level, it's a really big deal," Goodale said. "I'm assuming they (the Falcons) are bringing it back because there's interest. It's a great sport -- obviously I'm biased -- for so many reasons including the discipline and character that are built. Everybody, at some point in their lives, should partake in wrestling."
Goodale speaks from experience, having coached both wrestling and football at Jackson Memorial High before moving into the college coaching ranks.
"Football and wrestling go hand-in-hand," according to the Scarlet Knights head wrestling coach. "I'm speaking from experience. When I was at Jackson, that's the way it was. There's no coincidence we had really successful programs (in both sports) because of it."
Wrestling's return to St. Joseph bucks a trend that has seen fewer individuals participate in the sport at the high school level over the past four years, both at the national and statewide levels.
St. Joseph High School is a Roman Catholic, all-boys school located in Metuchen, N.J., between New York City and New Brunswick, N.J. Founded in 1961, St. Joseph has an enrollment of approximately 700 students.
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