Local youth wrestling programs feature unusual baker’s dozen - 13 sets of brothers

[February 25, 2019] 

On Friday evening members of the Lincoln Youth Wrestling program, Lincoln Junior High School Trojan Wrestlers and Lincoln Community High School Railer Wresters met at the high school for a unique photo op.

In the three programs, the participants include 13 sets of brothers. Within the group the majority of the participants are in the youth program and the junior high program with only two boys – Brandon Sweitzer and Michael O’Donoghue - being in the high school program.

The youngest of the group is five year-old Asher Morris, who participates in the Lincoln Youth Wrestling Tot Division.



Starting on the left side with the older sibling standing behind the younger: Kneeling is Garrett and standing is Seth Durbin, Carson and Dawson McConnell, Tristin with Zach Barger, Giovanni and Niccolas Sundeen; Logan White and Ryan O’Donoghue, Isaiah and Brandon Sweitzer; Zach Carlile and Isaac Decker; Brodie and Colbie Glenn; Elliott and Ryan Lichtenwalter, Asher and TJ Morris are the tenth set of brother wrestlers and the 11th set is Gabriel and Dominick Cummings.

Austin and Michael O’Donoghue and Spencer and Levi Allison were not present for the photo.

Walt Landers is the head coach for the youth program and spoke briefly about the unusual situation in Lincoln. He said that the three groups first became aware of just how many brothers are involved in the wrestling programs after a youth meet in Jacksonville where a number of the top placing Lincoln competitors were brothers.
 

Digging deeper Landers found that all together the three programs have 13 sets of brothers competing this year.

While the large number of brothers is a little surprising, the thought that there are brothers in general is not surprising, Landers said, because wrestling is a big family affair in Lincoln.

He noted that often kids who choose to participate in wrestling had dads who also participated in the sport in school. Many of those same dads end up helping with coaching throughout their child’s competitive years and even beyond.

While the Lincoln Youth Wrestlers (LYW) is headed up by Landers, there are a number of assistant coaches who work with individual age groups. Because the program is quite large, it takes several people to keep things running smoothly and many of those people are parents.

The head coach of the Lincoln Junior High School program is Alex Dawson and again, there are other parents who get involved.

The same is true at the high school with Coach Justin Dieterich.

Landers noted that the whole family is likely to be involved from time to time, and said there are two wrestler sisters who now serve as the statisticians for the high school competitions. Another highly involved person is Tiffany Glenn, who on Friday night was busy taking club photos for the LYW program.

While some of the brothers are following in dad’s steps and some are following in their older brother’s foot prints, Landers said that there have been occasions when it was a younger brother who first became interested in wrestling, and his enjoyment of the sport then sparked an interest in the older sibling.

The boys have all had a good year along with the other members of their teams that don’t fit in the brotherly profile. While there are only two brothers in the high school program, all three programs enjoy a good number of participants, and it is clear that over the next few years, all three programs have a lot to look forward to as these youngsters work to hone their skills.

[Nila Smith]