Leopards make history
By Brandt Young Sports Editor, The Sampson Independent
It was a historic day for Lakewood last Wednesday, as their newly-founded wrestling team participated in its first-ever match and took home the win.
Head coach Devin Millen, who said he hadn’t watched much wrestling outside of WWE and other professional wrestling, said it was a bit of a process to get things started for the program.
“As far as I know, when Coach Holt took the football program over, he was just trying to do what he needed to do to be a successful football coach,” Millen said. “And he came to me and asked me if I would be interested in coaching our wrestling program, because it would really help our football team.”
Millen said that his response to that question was a simple ‘sure,’ although he had never done something like that before. “I’m not sure if he pressed it, or Coach Hulen pressed it, or what,” he added, noting the short turnaround.
“I think we found out in November we were going to have a program,” Millen continued. “It was all a rush. We had to find somebody to donate us money — and I don’t know who donated — to get us a mat, and then we had to find who was going to wrestle us. Coach Gordon from Rosewood really was my backbone in all of this. Really, without him, it would be hard to have a program.
“He helped us find a mat, he let us come to watch his practices, and all that stuff,” the coach added. At the Leopards’ first match last Wednesday at American Leadership Academy-Johnston, Millen said Gordon helped him make plenty of coaching decisions and helped him coach his first matches, too.
With 15 wrestlers on the squad, comprising of 10 boys and five girls, Millen said he was a bit nervous going into their first match. “It was very nerve-wracking,” he said. “Not knowing what to expect, never having been to a wrestling match before. We just did our warm-ups and were ready to go, and luckily Rosewood was there. I was very thankful that Coach Gordon was there.”
Lakewood has three more matches scheduled for this season, which totals just four on the season, but the Leopards have added a home match for Jan. 29, something that Millen wasn’t expecting, he said. The matches will take place on Wednesdays, including tomorrow and the 22nd, plus the final match at home to finish Lakewood’s first-ever wrestling season.
Wrestling has never been notorious or synonymous with the state of North Carolina, especially at the high school and collegiate levels, but Millen said it has grown statewide in the last decade.
“I think in the last ten years, you hear a lot more about high school wrestling than you did in the ten years before that,” he continued. “So I think it’s on the up-rise.”
There is data to back up his point, too. According to NFHS, more than eight million student-athletes participated in wrestling in the 2023-24 season, which was the highest number of all-time. While the growth is widely attributed to football, many factors play into the successful growth of the grappling sport.
“We want to knock the doors down with this thing,” Millen said, on the growth of the sport at Lakewood. “I told them, when they gave me the job, ‘If we’re going to do it, let’s do it the right way — let’s build this program up.’”
And knock the doors down they did, when Parker Pope secured the school’s first-ever win on the wrestling mat in the 125-pound weight class. Millen noted that Pope had no prior wrestling experience and just one day of practice — last Monday — under his belt before taking on his first opponent, making the Leopard’s victory even bigger.
“Just support us,” Millen explained, on how the community can help him and the program succeed. “If you see one of our wrestlers, just tell them that you appreciate what they’re doing and learning. This is the first time we’ve ever done this, so just be there and support us.”
Varsity wrestlers include Pope, Joseph Duncan, Matthew Rupert, Caleb Neal, Landon Thames, Josh Owens, Armoni Parker, Edwin Torres, Isis Salmon, Kelly Valdez and Crystal Guzman.