Raider turned Panther
Pitt wrestling is in Drew Headlee’s blood.
The former Waynesburg Central and Panther star wrestler is enjoying his second season as an assistant on coach Jason Peters’ staff.
Headlee was an All-American at Pitt, where he graduated in 2008, and after wrestling on the international circuit for four years, took a job as a volunteer assistant for two years at Lehigh University under former Pitt grappler Pat Santoro, before being hired by the Panthers.
“I was kind of in the right place at the right time,” Headlee said. “I was coaching for Lehigh and the job opened up at Pitt when Matt Wilps, who was an assistant at the time, decided that he was going in another career direction. Coach Peters called me and said that there was an opening.
“I had to go through the whole interview process, but I think my passion for not only Pitt wrestling, but Pitt athletics, helped me get the job. It adds a little extra coaching for my alma mater. I love Pitt so much.”
Headlee may only be in his fourth year of coaching, but he has been around coaches his whole life as his father, Ron, guided the Jefferson-Morgan program when Cary Kolat was in the midst of an undefeated high school career. Ron is the current head wrestling coach at Waynesburg University, where the younger Headlee loves to talk wrestling with his dad.
“I think I really started to become interested in coaching when I was wrestling in college and doing camps and so forth,” Drew Headlee said. “With my dad coaching at Jefferson-Morgan during the days when Kolat wrestled, I would follow him to the matches, so I was always around wrestling and coaching.
“The guys seem to think that I do a good job and that makes me feel good. I have heard what Kolat has said about what my dad did for him and I hope I can make that kind of impact on a kid some day.”
The younger Headlee relishes the opportunity to talk to his dad about the challenges of coaching wrestling and gaining advice on incoming recruits.
“I love the opportunity to discuss wrestling and coaching with my dad,” Headlee said. “We can share information about recruits we see and can talk about the stresses of coaching. It is really neat for both of us to be coaching at the same time.
“It can be a little different with me being and assistant, and him being a head coach, but it’s great to talk with him about wrestling.”
Headlee knows that the chance of him seeing his dad at a dual meet or a tournament are slim to none, but likes what he sees in the Yellow Jackets.
“It will probably not happen where we would wrestle Waynesburg since we are at the D-1 level and they are D-3, but it is neat to see my dad get those kids to come wrestle for him,” Headlee said. “Those kids that wrestle at the D-3 level do it for the love of the sport. That is not to say our kids don’t love wrestling by any means, but those kids are not getting scholarships and may not have the talent of our guys, but they work very hard.”
The former PIAA state champion in 2002 knows that the champions come from the wrestlers that are willing to put in the extra time and give 100 percent each time out, but states that is the most frustrating part of the job when it comes to coaching.
“I can train a wrestler to be the best that he can be, but he has to want it,” Headlee said. “There are guys that come here with all the talent in the world but may not have that desire to be the best. That is really heartbreaking to me. The guys that have the talent and are willing to go that extra mile are the ones that do the best.
“It can be very frustrating when that happens, but I can’t go out there and wrestle for them. It really takes that special person that can do both. We try to get those guys at Pitt. We want those guys that are going to work hard every day in the wrestling room to be the best and are set on winning a national championship. That is why I have so much respect for the guys that wrestle for my dad. They may not have been a guy that was in the state tournament every year, but were very close and are willing to bust their butt every day in practice. We have some guys at Pitt that are getting close to that level to hopefully being in the hunt for a national title.”
One individual that has been to the top of the medal stand at the NCAA national championships is University of North Carolina head coach Coleman Scott. Scott, who was a three-time PIAA state champion at Waynesburg Central before winning a national title at Oklahoma State in 2008 and a bronze medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in freestyle, will be leading the Tar Heels on Saturday at the Pitt Duals.
Headlee is one year older than Scott, but the two wrestled for many years in the Raiders’ program, and due to their closeness in weight and desire, shared many hours in the practice room together.
“Every tournament that I go and see Coleman at we usually start and talk for a while,” Headlee said. “We are not wrestling UNC at the duals because we have a dual meet later in the season at Chapel Hill. It is nice to see him do well, but once we are on the mat, it is all business.”
Scott and Headlee are not the only Waynesburg Central graduates that will be at the Fitzgerald Field House on Saturday, as 2015 PIAA state champion AC Headlee wrestles for the Tar Heels. The Headlees are distant relations.
“It is kind of funny because I was receiving all kinds of messages on Facebook last year wishing my brother, and even my son, good luck,” Drew said. “We are related but it is very distant. AC had a great high school career and it is nice to see another Division I wrestler come from Waynesburg.”
Headlee enjoys coaching so close to home and does his best to come back and check in and see how things are going for coach Joe Throckmorton and the Raiders.
“I do my best to get in when I can and check on the team at Waynesburg to see how they are doing,” Headlee said. “I owe a lot to coach Throckmorton. He was my little league coach and we have stayed in touch. He used to take me, his son Mark, and Coleman to a lot of tournaments. They always wrestle in tough tournaments like the Beast of the East and the Powerade, and choose to wrestle up in Class AAA when they are a Class AA school. I have so much respect for him.”