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Crystal Lake Central lost two state champions coming into the 2015-16 season, but the Tigers finished it with a new one and two more place winners.
As a team, the Tigers went 21-8 in duals, won the Fox Valley Conference Fox Division, won their Class 2A regional and for the second consecutive year finished fourth in the dual team state meet, claiming their fifth state trophy under coach Justen Lehr.
For that, Lehr is the Northwest Herald Wrestling Coach of the Year, as voted on by the sports staff with input from other local coaches.
Recently, he answered a few questions about the season, his love of food, which kid drove him craziest and more.
1. What was the biggest challenge this year with your guys?
I know for us and some of the other teams, we start a lot of underclassmen, and to go and just get beat on week after week, you’ve got to find a way to keep those kids positive. That’s probably the biggest thing that you have to do. It was probably the hardest job I had this year.
2. Which kid made you laugh the most this year, and which drove you the craziest?
I’d probably say, which is hilarious because people don’t even know, Lenny Petersen is probably one of the funniest kids you’ll ever meet. I think a lot of people think he’s super serious because he gives off that vibe and his face and his whole look and demeanor on the mat. … And then one of the kids that I’d say drove me the most crazy is Brock Montford, because he’s 15 going on 35. He does doomsday prepping and stuff. … That’s for sure the kid that drove me the most insane, but he’s a great kid.
3. If they were going to name a sandwich after you, what would be on it?
I’m a big foodie, I’m on a professional barbecue team so I’d have to go barbecue. Honestly I’ve got to go old-school Texas middle-of-nowhere sandwich, a Texas brisket sandwich, pickles, onions on a hobo bun.
4. Wait, a barbecue team?
So long story short, Jon Murphy, who’s the wrestling coach at Johnsburg, he’s been a friend of mine for a long time. His pseudo-cousin got into big-time barbecue, and I’m like "Hey, I’d kind of like to learn how to do that." I went to a party that he had at his house out in Bull Valley and we got to be friends, and my best friend, Brian Kane, he coaches football and baseball at our school, he’s a math teacher, I was like, "He’d like to learn, too." So we signed up for a state championship contest, and we won it, the first contest we all did together. We went to the Jack Daniels World Championships. Kind of did that for a while, now we just love doing barbecue. We do some illegal catering frequently.
5. What’s your favorite thing to barbecue?
KCBS, which is the big organization that runs most of the barbecue contests it’s a four-meat deal, it’s chicken, ribs, brisket and pork shoulder. The most I do for catering is pork shoulder, but there is nothing better than a well-done brisket, which is probably the hardest piece of meat to cook. … When it’s done right, you can’t beat it.
6. What’s your favorite sports movie?
I mean I’ve got to give a nod, every wrestler, if you don’t say “Vision Quest” I feel like you’re a loser, honestly. But outside the sport of wrestling, if I had to pick another sports movie, I love “Sandlot,” just the whole growing up with all my buddies, that would probably be my second favorite. But if you don’t say “Vision Quest” as a wrestling coach there’s something wrong with you.”
7. What’s a moment from this year that you’ll remember?
I’ve got two of them, one’s kind of a team thing and one’s and individual thing. When we moved Austin Parks to 220, which was a decision that we made on a couple different things: We thought he had a better chance to get to the finals and maybe win it at 220 and it also gave an opportunity to Keegan O’Donnell to have a chance to qualify. I think having a kid that’s never wrestled in our program, just moved here, the fact that that’s one of the reasons he said he’d do it also, he said like ‘I want to see Keegan have a chance to qualify,’ was a huge deal. I made a point of it at our banquet, this is the kind of family atmosphere we’ve had here, he wrestles here for a couple months and decides he wants to move not just for himself but to help another kid out. I would say as a team, I told our kids we’re not allowed to talk about losing Romeo (McKnight). That was a big deal for us, like we’re never going to bring it up. I think people don’t realize we lost a state champ that would have helped us. I think you add Romeo to our lineup and we’re probably in the state finals this year. And that’s not to make excuses, it is what it is, things would have shook out a little different. But at state, after we lost that dual in the semifinals we met in the parking lot before we came back and we had a nice little team talk, I can’t really tell you what was said, there was maybe some expletives dropped. But I basically said we’re not going to bow down to a team that has 10 state place winners, we’re going to give them everything they came to get. The way our kids responded in that third-place match, you didn’t say one of our kids say ‘Oh I’m cool with a trophy.’ We still wanted to win and we weren’t going to make it easy for Mount Carmel. I thought that was huge for our team and our program, for people to see that we’re not going to bow down to people like that. That as a coach was my most proud moment of the year for our whole team.”
8. What’s the worst wrestling coach cliche of all?
There’s so many good ones. "Use it," "Do you even want to win?" I mean there’s so many good ones. Basically anything where a coach yells to a kid, I probably accidentally do it too, you’re so frustrated you run out of real things to say so you just yell stuff. I feel like sometimes I’m just yelling like a bear in a thicket in the woods, the kids don’t even know what I’m saying, because you get so frustrated. But saying things like ‘Use it’ or ‘What are you doing out there’ typically those aren’t things that inspire kids to do better.”
9. Now that you’re not spending all your time in the wrestling room, what are you doing in the offseason?
Well we’ve got a couple wrestlers that play baseball, so I went to the game today and took my kids out. I’ve got a lot of hobbies. Me and my buddy, Coach Kane, we like brewing, we like barbecuing, cooking. I’d probably say my biggest passions are either hunting or cooking, honestly.
10. What’s the biggest difference in the sport now versus when you were a high school wrestler?
I remember back when I was in high school or I’d come in junior high and watch, there was a certain hatred between schools. Football hasn’t really lost that because you don’t train with other football kids, there is a little bit of it, but not like it is in wrestling. In wrestling now you go to these clubs and you’re best friends with five kids from Huntley, five kids from South, five kids from McHenry, so we’ve lost that – and I don’t want to say it’s bad for the sport – but we’ve lost that rivalry like town-versus-town thing. I remember being in high school, we hated Oregon High School. I look at our kids now and some of our kids are like ‘I don’t really like South,’ well we have kids from South that come to our open mats in the summer, you know, things like that. It’s good for the sport because everyone wants to get better, which is awesome. You build more relationships with kids and other coaches, but I think we’ve lost a little bit of that edge of in the area certain teams not liking other teams.