| With the creation of the newly formed Reynolds High School (Reynolds Area Joint School) in 1960 the school board decided to start a wrestling program. The collection of new students came from the former Fredonia High School, Greenville High School, Jamestown High School, and from Farrell High School where many of the former Transfer High School students went after it was closed in 1946. Several students from Greenville and Jamestown had wrestled before and the school board didn’t want them to miss a year of competition and so the wrestling program at Reynolds begin. |
| In the early fall of 1960 Mr. Bost, the principal of Reynolds High School, stopped in on one of Mr. Sherwood's PE classes, He had been hired as part of the original teaching staff as a Health and PE teacher. He had graduated from Youngsville High School where his dad was superintendent. Sherwood played football, basketball, ran track and in the summer played baseball. After high school he attended Slippery Rock University where he was involved with track and gymnastics. |
| Mr. Sherwood thought that Mr Bost was coming in to observe his class but was in for a big surprise when Bost proceeded to tell him that the school board had decided to start a wrestling program and informed him that he was the coach. Sherwood told him that he had never wrestled or even saw a wrestling match before and that his interest was in track and basketball. |
| Mr. Bost told him that he would just have to do it for one year as they had someone lined up to coach the next year. All he had to was get the wrestlers in shape and take them to the matches. Sherwood would later say ”The first wrestling match I ever saw I was Head Coach.” |
| Mr. Bost put Sherwood in contact with Mel Berry a former Greenville High School wrestling coach and then current Thiel College wrestling coach who helped Sherwood get the wrestling program organized. Berry even came down to Reynolds and gave a program to the students to explain what wresting was about and how the scoring went etc. Berry had a huge impact on Reynolds wrestling and also wrestling in Mercer County. Bob Lenkner, coach of Commodore Perry was also helpful and would bring his wrestlers over to scrimmage with the Reynolds wrestlers. |
| The students who had wrestled before helped organize the practice schedule and run drills. Those that had wrestled before were the following: from Greenville, Mark Reichard a sophomore, Larry Uber a sophomore (a Section Champ the year before) and Bucky Moffet a Junior (he was Reynolds' first Section & District Champ); from Jamestown, Ralph Grady a senior (a Distrist 10 Champ at 95 pounds two years earlier), Terry Groover a junior and Stan McCright a senior. |
| The wrestlers practiced in the school’s cafeteria. They had to put the tables and chairs in the hallway and then bring the mats from the gym storage room. After practice they had to return the mats and put the tables and chairs back in the cafeteria. Coach Sherwood said there was more time spent moving things in and out then they had practice time. |
| One of the fun activities coach Sherwood used was the "take down challenge" where a wrestler would go against another wrestler and whoever took down the other wrestler would take on the next challenger. Mark Reichard who was on the first wrestling team (who also became Reynolds 3rd head coach) remembers Ralph Grady one of the lightweights winning one of the takedown challenges. |
| The coach that the school had hired for the second year was Neal Lineman who at the time was finishing his last year at Purdue University. Lineman had attended Greenville High School where he played football and wrestled for Mel Berry. Berry was to have a great impact in Linesman’s wrestling & coaching career as well as in his life. While wrestling at Greenville Lineman was a 3-time District Champ. After graduating high school in 1952 he went to Purdue University where was awarded a scholarship to wrestle. Being a young kid far away from home things did not work out well and he left school and returned to Greenville where he worked at the Greenville Steel Car for a summer and then enlisted in the Army from 1954-57. He was stationed in Germany. After completing his enlistment he went back to Purdue under the G.I. Bill to finish his college degree. |
| It was during his senior year that his mother-in-law back in Greenville saw an ad in the local paper about a teaching and coaching position available at Reynolds High School. She contacted Mr. Bost and gave him Neal’s phone number. |
| Mr. Bost called Neal and asked that while he was home on Easter break if he could meet with him at his house in Jamestown. So he meet with Mr. Bost and discussed being the wrestling coach. After the meeting Bost sent him to meet with Mr. Welch who was the Supervising Principal at the old Fredonia High School to see what teaching positions were open. They had an opening for a Math and Science teacher. Part of his degree was Science but not Math. After the meeting he headed back to Purdue and two weeks later he received a letter that he had been hired as the wrestling coach and a Science and Math teacher for the 61-62 school year. While at Perdue he met Frank Amato who went to Sharon High School and was playing football at Purdue (Amato would later became the head football coach at Reynolds). |
| In the second year of the school Neal Lineman became head coach. Mr. Bost worked out a schedule where the cafeteria would be open the eighth period and the janitors would start to clear out the cafeteria getting it ready for wrestling practice. Mat carts were built by the shop students in the third year of the program which saved having to carry the mats. In 1967 the Auxiliary gym was built and it became the practice area for the wrestlers. |
| In the 1963-64 school year Lineman and Sherwood changed teaching positions where Lineman became the P.E. teacher and Sherwood became the Driver Training instructor including Safety Ed which was the classroom part of the course. |
| Coach lineman coached for 16 years and during that time frame he built a solid foundation for the future of Reynolds Wrestling. When Lineman retired at the end of the 1976-77 season he was replaced my former Reynolds wrestler Mark Reichard, followed by Doug Groover, Ron Taylor, Ed McClimans, Brian Hills and Casey Taylor. They all have continued to build on the foundation Lineman built and continued the traditions that has made Reynolds wrestling a prestigious program recognized in Pennsylvania and the Country. |
| Notes: |
| The first uniforms were three-piece uniforms. The top piece was a gray sleeveless shirt that had a strap that came up between the legs and buttoned in the front. The bottom part of the uniform were gray tights/leggings which were full-length and the last part of the uniform were dark blue tight-fitting brief style trunks that went over the tights. There were no warm-ups the first year but in the 2nd year the warm-ups were gray long sleeve jackets with a blue collar and blue cuffs with Raiders on the back. |
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The first practice mats used were gym mats laid together and covered with a vinyl cover. The match mat was a several inch thick felt mat. Many wrestles would get brush buns from wrestling on the mat. It wasn't until the 3rd year that they got foam mats. |
| Head gears were optional in the early years. If you wanted to wear one you had to buy your own. Very few of the early wrestlers wore one. Starting in 1966 most of the wrestlers were starting to wear a headgear although they were still not mandatory. |
| The junior high program started around 1965 or 1966 and the elementary program started shortly after that. |
| Early assistant coaches were; Joe Youngo, John Stevens and Jim Tokar. |
| Riding Time was part of match scoring up through the 70's and into the 80's. |
| During Lineman's career there were several seasons where there were over 100 wrestlers out for the team. It was so crowded during wrestle-offs that those not wrestling would have wait in the hall. Men from local industries would come after work to watch the elimination matches as they were generally better matches then those wrestled against opponents. |
| In the the 1969-70 season Lineman started the Victory Stick tradition. The victory stick, made by Mr. DeAngelis, the school's shop teacher, was a plain round stick with a number of stripes to match the number of matches that particular year. After each match, Mr. Thomas the Art teacher at the school would paint one of the stripes, blue for a win and red for a loss. |
