MILWAUKEE — Messmer High School in Milwaukee hosted its first wrestling dual in four and a half decades.
"It means everything," Messmer Coach Jamal Vaughns said. "It means a rekindling of a candle that needs to continue to go. It's been 45 years since we've had wrestling here at Messmer High School. The opportunity came across where we could host this event, so I knew that this is what our students need to see."
"Yeah, I was pretty excited for it to come like here at Messmer," 175-pound wrestler Blar Har says. "I never expected it to."
Jamal Vaughns helped begin a full-time co-op team, last year.
"Luckily we were able to co-op with Brown Deer High School as well as Shorewood High School," Vaughns says. "The co-op between those two schools really propelled us to get to this event today. So a village of people that's willing to help us along the way is what it takes to get to where we are now."
Some are new to the sport.
"I wasn't really interested in it until my friend told me to join," Blar Har says. "And that's when I tried it out."
Which Vaughns can identify with fully.
"What interested me in wrestling, was not having to wash dishes one night," Vaughns says. "It was my turn to go home and do chores. I didn't want to do it. Over the announcements in 7th grade, they said wrestling tryouts were that day. And I immediately knew where I was going to be that afternoon. So I went to wrestling tryouts. Just glad that I didn't do dishes."
And for Vaughns? Wrestling is pretty simple.
"You gotta be a good listener," Vaughns says. "If you can be a good listener? You can get far in life. Secondly, you gotta be a good person. Be good to yourself. Be good to others. If you are a good listener and a good person? You're going to become a good wrestler. If you take those two principles and apply it to being a student, being a father, being a mother, being an employer? If you are a good listener and a good person? You're gonna succeed."
On this night? The co-op team beat Cudahy 72-9. So there's no turning back.
"Failure isn't an option. You don't fail. You learn," Vaughns says.
The Messmer co-op with Brown Deer and Shorewood is in its second full season. Baby steps, but you can tell significant progress for the kids already.
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