Staff file photo / Preston Byers Lakeview head wrestling coach Ryan Williams celebrates a pinfall victory during the Bulldogs’ home meet vs. Leetonia and Austintown Fitch’s B team in Cortland on Dec. 17.

When Ryan Williams stepped down as the Liberty head wrestling coach in 2024, he admitted that it was not for a lack of passion for the sport, but rather a time commitment he could no longer make while raising young children.

A year later, things had changed somewhat.

“My wife finally gave me the green light,” Williams said. “She made me take that year off because of the kids, and she saw that I was miserable.”

His wife’s only condition for Williams to return to the sport, he said, was that it had to be close to their home in Cortland. So he got to work.

Lakeview, like many schools in the area, did not have a wrestling program, which Williams suggested should change. He said that he initially met with the principal and athletic director, who warned him that the district would not provide any funding to a team if he created one.

Undeterred, Williams agreed and quickly decided that he did not want to wait around as things worked their way up the chain of command.

“They said, ‘Yeah, well, then we’ll meet with the superintendent, see what kind of progress you make over the next couple months.’ I was impatient. I didn’t let it go a couple months. So I secured a mat and uniforms the same day I talked to the AD and principal,” Williams.

By mid-April, a little over a month after receiving the go-ahead from his wife, Williams got the meeting that he wanted.

“I just kept telling them to get me in front of the superintendent,” Williams said. “She was very hesitant at first, but I don’t think she fully realized at the very beginning that I wasn’t asking for money for coaches’ contracts; we’d completely fund it. She’s like, ‘Well, yeah, go ahead.'”

With the wrestling club and its donors covering bussing, uniforms and just about everything else, what Lakeview provided was its approval and a place to practice; Williams said they are currently in the high school cafeteria. They had been looking at a specific classroom to move into, he said, but that plan might already be no good.

“Since our match against Liberty, I’ve had nine new kids show up. So it just keeps growing, and now I’m starting to wonder, I don’t think the room is going to be big enough. We might have to stay in the cafeteria,” Williams said.

These are definitely good problems to have for the nascent wrestling club, which is sanctioned by the Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) but technically not one of the school’s varsity sports.

Williams said that he had initially considered starting at the youth level to build the Lakeview wrestling program from the foundation, but the buzz around the community, he said, made him decide to pull the trigger on starting youth, middle school and high school boys and girls teams all at once.

“So far, it hasn’t backfired,” Williams said.

When he started out, Williams hoped he could get about 50 kids to join the programs. But four months since the first fundraiser, 90 have come aboard, he said, with many from nearby Scrapyard Wrestling Club.

Williams credited the reach of social media, particularly Facebook, and the support of Lakeview head football coach Ron DeJulio Jr. for the rapid growth of wrestling in the area.

“That goes a long way,” Williams said. “Anytime the head football coach backs a wrestling program, it benefits both programs. … He realizes we’re a smaller school district and we have to share athletes.”

On Dec. 17, the Bulldogs hosted their first home meet vs. Leetonia and Austintown Fitch’s B team, two very different squads.

Fitch, one of the largest and best wrestling programs in the area, dominated the competition despite bringing none of their best talent. Leetonia, on the other hand, had fewer than a half-dozen wrestlers to compete with the expansive Lakeview and Fitch rosters.

Still, Williams said then that the experience was a good one, and that his wrestlers could see up close what they could potentially become with time. The meet also served as a valuable experience for those not on the mat, such as the scoreboard operators and fans in attendance, many of whom are new to the sport entirely.

“I guess the biggest difference is nobody here knows anything about it as far as what to expect on match day or tournament day,” Williams said. “So it’s kind of like my phone rings off the hook answering questions leading up to events. But there’s a ton of parent involvement.”

Williams’ ambition has not only been supported by those in the community, but Fitch head wrestling coach John Burd also made it clear that he hopes to see the Bulldogs and his friend succeed.

“They’re doing an excellent job building it from the ground up,” Burd said. “… Hats off to Ryan, he’s getting a lot of good people around him, getting support from their administration. I know their athletic department, principal, staff, all of them have been behind him, helping him and supporting him along the way.”

While many of the Bulldogs are effectively pups when it comes to wrestling, Williams said two of his wrestlers have been standouts so far this season.

“Aurora Hall, I have full confidence that she’s going to make a run to the podium at state,” Williams said. “Dustin Corbett, he’s got some prior experience from where he lived prior – he came from Greenville – but he hasn’t wrestled in four years. But he’s wrestling lights out.”

Either Hall or Corbett having success this season, especially in February and March, could prove to be massive for the Lakeview program as Williams tries to keep interest in his club high through the inevitable growing pains.

“[I want to] get them hooked, maintain the numbers, keep them excited,” Williams said. “It’s been challenging, you know, because you go into most matches expecting to lose, right? Everybody has way more experience than us, but they go out there and battle, and they’re trying to win and not just cowering down.

“They show up the next day. They’re excited. They want to learn where they can improve. This group of kids, especially, has been awesome.”