Tony Welsh, football
If you don’t know anything about Beth-Center’s Tony Welsh, you haven’t been paying attention.
Welsh wrapped up his third consecutive Herald-Standard Touchdown Club title by scoring 31 touchdowns and 186 points this football season. He also came pretty close to breaking his school’s rushing record. Welsh is also an outstanding wrestler for the Bulldogs and plans to wrestle in college.
For all of his accomplishments, Welsh has become Beth-Center’s fall sports male selection in the Centennial Chevrolet Scholar/Athlete Spotlight program. He is a son of Natalie and Denny Welsh, of Fredericktown. Has three siblings, Dominic Welsh, a sophomore baseball player at Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus; B-C freshman track athlete Talia Welsh, and sixth-grade wrestler and football player Rocco Welsh.
Welsh recently visited Bloomsburg University, where he would attend as a wrestler. If he had to choose now (he doesn’t), Welsh would select Pitt or Clarion to wrestle and study physical therapy.
“I’ve really been looking at a lot of schools for wrestling,” Welsh said. “I think I’m leaning more toward wrestling right now. For football, I was getting recruited by WVU for a little bit as a safety. I think football goes into like a quiet period, where they can’t talk to you, so I haven’t talked to them lately. I also talked to Slippery Rock, Cal U and Allegheny for football. For wrestling, I’m talking to Pitt, Bloomsburg, Clarion, Lock Haven. I talked to North Carolina, but I don’t think I’ll go there.”
So why wrestling over football?
“I want to go to a bigger college. I’d like to play college football, but there are like 100 kids on most teams. It’s really hard to prove yourself, ” he said. “In wrestling, you go out and beat the kid and you’re starting.”
Welsh holds his head high in regards to football, but simply likes wrestling better.
“I don’t really have any regrets on how I played or how hard I worked,” Welsh said. “When practice or lifting came, I worked as hard as I could. I didn’t hold anything back, I gave it my all.”
Welsh came within 100 yards of breaking Keith Miller’s record for rushing yards in a career for the Bulldogs, but takes solace in the fact that he played fewer games than Miller.
“I was a couple yards short of Keith’s record, but he played eight more games than I did,” Welsh said. “He played as a freshman. I ended up with like 18 carries as a freshman. When he played, they went to the third round of the playoffs a couple of times, so he got more games.”
And, as Welsh moves on from football to wrestling season, he is ready to move into the next phase of his life, as well.
“I want to be a physical therapist or an assistant physical therapist,” Welsh said. “I think a pulled hamstring is about the worst injury I’ve ever had, so I’ve been fortunate. If I do get hurt, I don’t really sit out. I just pretty much do therapy on it and do rehab on it and try to get back. I know I wouldn’t work just with athletes, but it should help me stay close to athletics.”
He made it to the PIAA semifinals in wrestling last season, so he’s pretty anxious to get this season underway. He hopes to be standing on the awards podium in Hershey again this year.