Nitro’s Easter named state’s top wrestler

By Rick Ryan
The Charleston Gazette

Sat, May 17 2008

— After four years of high school wrestling and countless all-star matches, Seth Easter has somehow managed to keep his head screwed on straight.
Even with all the success that’s been showered on the Nitro senior in recent seasons, he remains well-grounded.
His accomplishments are many — a fourth state title, a winning streak that reached 150 matches and the coveted Outstanding Wrestler Award at last’s month Class AAA state tournament, and now the 24th Robert Dutton Award as the state’s top wrestler.
Still, Easter isn’t expecting to set the world on fire when he reports to the wrestling program at Cornell University in August. He follows his older brother, Matt, another former four-time state champion at Nitro who is completing his senior season at Cornell.
“Right now, they’re pretty stacked,” Seth Easter said. “Most freshmen don’t go in thinking they’re going to be a starter. They don’t allow redshirts, only medical ones. I’m not really having (high hopes). I’m good here, but college is a whole ’nother world. I watched my brother dominate in high school, then he went to college and he wasn’t even starting.
“My weight class will probably be 141 pounds. It’d be great if I did start (there), but if there’s a place in the lineup somewhere, of course I’ll go to that weight.”
For someone used to dominating on the mat in recent years, Easter’s honesty is refreshing. Chuck Easter, the high school coach and father of Seth, sees his son’s future plans as sensible.
“He’s got a realistic idea about college wrestling,” Chuck Easter said, “especially with him being just 18 years old and going into a program where it’s a rarity to have a fifth-year senior, compared to a lot of schools with sixth-year seniors.
“You know you have an 18-year-old who’s going to have to wrestle a 24-, 25-year-old, and in this sport, the 24-to-28 age group is when you kind of peak. He’s realistic about what to expect for next year, and what he does when he gets into the practice room. He’ll have to fight and scratch his way in there, because he’s going into some weight classes where the guys are pretty solid already.”
Seth’s state high school title last month gave the Easter family 11 in all between the years 2000-08 — four each for Seth and Matt and three for Anthony, the middle brother.
Chuck Easter deflected any credit for the family’s success to his sons and his wife, Beverly.
“It’s not so much what I did in the practice room or at the state tournament,” Chuck Easter said, “but more of what my wife and the kids did when the kids were young. She spent the whole summer driving them where the camps were. To be a schoolteacher, she’d quit work one day and immediately be right back wherever the camps were. She took them all over everywhere.
“With her effort, the boys (kept) getting better, really becoming what they were. She also stayed after them on the academic side. She’s the one who really kept them driven more so than I ever did. It’s easy to give the coach the credit, but all the coaches (at the state tournament) know it’s somebody behind the scenes that helps the kids along.”
Finishing second for the Dutton Award was Parkersburg’s Andy Thomas, who also captured a fourth straight state title at last month’s AAA state meet. Others in consideration were Anthony Jeffers of Point Pleasant and Nick Hylton of Liberty Raleigh, each a two-time Class AA-A state champion.
Easter will receive the Dutton Award at the 62nd West Virginia Sports Writers Association Victory Awards Dinner May 4 at the Lakeview Resort near Morgantown.
The Dutton Award, sponsored by The Parkersburg News and Sentinel, is voted on by a panel of coaches, referees and media members. It is named in honor of Robert Dutton, the legendary Parkersburg High School wrestling coach from 1957-76.