Black History Month: Princeton Wrestling Goes Off Campus
2/15/2023
The history of the Princeton Wrestling Club (PWC), a youth program in the Princeton community, long predates Chris Ayres' tenure as the head coach of Princeton University's wrestling team, and its reach is well beyond not just the Princeton campus, but the town it calls home.
“We run the youth program for the area, PWC,” Ayres said. “(Mark McLaughlin), who was heavily involved in this youth program, co-founded Trenton Youth Wrestling. He was here for a while, helped build this program, then started that one. We thought it would be mutually beneficial for both our guys to go down there and get some work in, and also for the kids to receive our guys. It’s been a pretty successful situation.”
The very first picture you see on the Trenton Youth Wrestling website is of a huge group of young wrestlers in Jadwin Gym, the home of Princeton University Wrestling. Others show visits to Dillon Gym, where the Princeton University wrestlers competed for years.
“The relationship that Trenton Youth Wrestling and Princeton University Wrestling enjoys is unique and a great example of the power of collaboration and cross-pollination,” McLaughlin said. “Two decades ago, Princeton University Wrestling, under former coach Mike New, welcomed the fledgling Princeton youth program into the University’s wrestling room because the program was struggling and bereft of a coach. Coach New resuscitated the program and served as temporary coach before handing it over to me, a former wrestler and new Princeton resident with three young boys. Over the next few years I was privileged to work with Chris Ayres and we began to grow the program in depth and breadth into its current form now known as Princeton Wrestling Club. Coach Ayres always made us at PWC feel welcome in his wrestling room and helped us understand that we were an important part of the Princeton wrestling community.”
Princeton has been more than the home team in the series with Trenton Youth Wrestling. Current Tiger wrestlers have made trips to Trenton to work with those in the program, and though the pandemic hurt both participation on the Trenton program's end and Princeton's ability to make visits, the partnership persevered with online visits and now with Trenton Youth Wrestling looking to build its program back after the pandemic took away the regularity of attending in-person clinics.
“COVID really hurt their program very badly. They were flowing and it was abruptly stopped, so they kind of had to start from scratch again,” Ayres said. “They’re trying to build it there, and I think our guys being involved is just a great piece of that.”
Jersey pride flows from the top through the Princeton University wrestling program, with Ayres and associate head coaches Joe Dubuque and Sean Gray all native Garden Staters, but with the program drawing wrestlers from around the country, many Tigers may not have been any more familiar with Trenton than those who pass through on Route 1, looking to their left as they head north, seeing the “Trenton Makes” bridge in the foreground and the golden dome of the state capitol in the background, surrounded by a web of state government buildings.
Jadwin Gym is a mere 12 miles from those sights, and though that's a relatively short distance, the gap in some numbers and statistics is much larger. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median household income in Trenton is just under $40,000. In the town of Princeton, it's more than four times that. In Trenton, those who have graduated high school account for three-fourths of the population. In Princeton, it's 98 percent. Fifteen percent of Trentonians hold a bachelor's degree. In Princeton, it's 85 percent.
Many occupations don't require a bachelor's degree, of course, but those on Ayres' team saw the value in blending the opportunity to compete in their sport with the chance to attend and graduate from Princeton, and the Ivy League's impression is all over Trenton Youth Wrestling. Co-founder Canaan Bethea wrestled at Penn, as did brothers Aaron, Maaziah (May) and Raamiah (Ray), and all are alums of Trenton Central High School and the Princeton Wrestling Club.
Luke Stout is among that group. A sophomore from the Pittsburgh area, Stout's father, Bryan, is from the Jersey Shore and wrestled at Clarion University in Pennsylvania, earning four All-American honors as the first Golden Eagle to achieve that. Stout's brothers wrestle, with younger brother Mac as a freshman at the University of Pittsburgh this season.
Stout also appreciates the aspect of his role as someone who brings representation to a group that, while there are many examples of successful Black wrestlers, especially in recent years, is part of a pipeline that needs to continue to flow.
“I think it’s a big deal to have people being able to watch athletes to compete at high levels from all different backgrounds, so I think it’s super important for athletes like myself to go out there and give everyone a good image of what that looks like,” Stout said.
Black wrestlers are a group Stout and the rest of the Princeton University wrestling team can reach through Trenton Youth Wrestling. Those same U.S. Census figures show Trenton's population as nearly half of the 90,000-person city, at 49 percent.
And in Stout in particular, wrestlers from Trenton or any other background have someone to look up to when it comes to success on the mat. In his rookie year last winter, Stout made the EIWA final and qualified for the NCAA Championships, winning a bout before suffering an injury in a wrestleback and finishing his first trip to the big stage at 1-2. He's well on his way to making it back to the NCAAs this year, ranked No. 19 in the nation at 197 pounds by the NCAA Coaches panel.
A couple years ahead of Luke Stout is Quincy Monday, and as successful as Stout's first year was, those extra years that Monday has on Stout look like a growth chart for what that added time can bring.
Monday, too, made the NCAAs in his rookie season, going 0-2 with a tiebreaker loss in his wrestleback bout. He qualified for the 2020 NCAA Championships, but as the wrestling world knows, the pandemic cancelations began just before the nation's best collegiate wrestlers were to descend on Minneapolis. Monday was named an All-American for his results during the season, including an EIWA finals appearance to cap a 23-4 record.
After the lost season to the pandemic in 2021, Monday was an NCAA qualifier again in 2022, this time winning EIWAs for the first time and making it to the NCAA final at 157 pounds, following 125-pounder Patrick Glory earlier in the day to give Princeton two finalists at the same NCAA Championships for the first time in program history.
There's also the biographical note that Monday's father, Kenny, was an Olympic gold medalist, winning the 74-kg (163 lb.) title. Four years earlier, he won the NCAA title at another school with a similar color scheme, Oklahoma State, at 150 pounds. In 2022, Kenny Monday was named head coach at Morgan State University, an HBCU (Historically Black College and University) in Maryland that is reviving its wrestling program, set to resume next season after being cut in 1996.
Monday, like Stout, serves as representation for Black wrestlers as someone who has made it not only to collegiate wrestling, but to its highest stage, having qualified for three NCAA Championships, having been the lone bout going on Saturday night, and well on his way to contending for a third All-American honor and an admission to an even smaller group of wrestlers over the program's history. Heading into the 2023 NCAA Championships, it's a group that numbers two, both guys that Monday sees around the wrestling room all the time: Glory and Matthew Kolodzik '21.
“Any way that we can support them and give them access to knowledge, whether that’s within the sport of wrestling or whatsoever, I think it means a lot to me, it means a lot to that community as well,” Monday said. “Providing opportunities and resources I think is the most important thing, getting exposure, letting these kids know there’s an example that they can look up to, that they can strive for.”
Monday also reminds that though Black wrestlers may share that heritage, there are many paths and stories to where he's been able to reach, and his is just one path.
“I can’t not acknowledge the support systems that I’ve had. My dad being an Olympic gold medalist, that inherently gives me access to great wrestling knowledge,” Monday said. "I come from a really privileged background with my parents providing the support and resources that I need so I can actually focus on wrestling. I think still providing those resources to these underserved communities is really important.
From any background, the opportunity to leave the “Orange Bubble," as the Princeton campus is affectionately known, has its benefits.
“When you give to other people, that’s when you get some healing in that (mental health) area,” Ayres said. “I think just from a mental health standpoint, to give and to donate their time to kids that are coming up, you think it’s what’s best for the kids down there, but I really think it’s what’s best for our guys too, so again you get that mutually beneficial where they get away from here, and some of it has been online too.”
The relationship between the Princeton University wrestling program and Trenton Youth Wrestling is not new, and it will continue once Monday, Stout and the rest of the current Tigers have graduated and left the Orange Bubble for good, other than Reunions and rooting on the Tigers in Jadwin.
“It's a great situation for both parties,” Ayres said.
