A few years ago, as a young Lewiston-Clarkston Valley wrestler named Rylan Rogers began piling up accolades from youth tournaments around the country, local followers of the sport — perhaps fixated on the mat version of the River Rivalry — began asking his father: Is the kid headed for Lewiston or Clarkston High School?
“I don’t know,” Bob Rogers would say. “We’re kind of holding out for Blair.”
Blair Academy prep school is a national wrestling powerhouse in New Jersey. Bob Rogers was making a joke.
Then one day his phone rang and the caller said, ‘This is Brian Antonelli, wrestling coach at Blair Academy.”
Bob Rogers thought one of his buddies was disguising his voice. He almost hung up.
But this was no joke. His son was being invited to apply for a scholarship at a highly selective (i.e. expensive) private school that during one stretch, ending in 2012, had rumbled to 31 consecutive team titles in the National Prep School Championships.
It seemed possible that Rylan (pronounced RYE-lin) Rogers’ life was about to change dramatically.
Two years later, he’s a 16-year-old Blair sophomore who two months ago captured his own National Preps title, at 182 pounds, and by next school year he could be ranked No. 1 in the country in that weight class — overall, not just among prep-schoolers. At the moment, he’s ranked 10th by InterMat, and all but one of the boys ahead of him are seniors set to graduate in a couple of months.
“I’ve transitioned a lot easier than I thought I would,” Rogers said by phone from his family’s home in Clarkston, where for the past month he’s been taking Blair classes online because of the coronavirus pandemic. “The West Coast is good wrestling-wise, but the power states like Pennsylvania and Ohio and New Jersey — that’s where you’re going to find the best competition throughout the country. I think it’s raised my level of wrestling.”
He’ll likely receive validation on that score when college recruiters get the green light to start contacting prospects June 15. Former Clarkston coach Dan Randles expects Rogers to get some interesting phone calls.
“He wrestles at 182 and he moves like a 140-pounder,” he said last week. “That’s a telltale sign of a quality kid.’’
Rylan attributes much of his success to the wholehearted support of his father, Bob, a CenturyLink employee who grew up playing basketball and football in Grangeville and wasn’t heavily involved in wrestling until his twin brother, the late Bill Rogers — also a newbie to wrestling — began coaching an L-C Valley youth club. The endeavor grew into a passion for him, as it did for Bob when he also got into coaching.
Their sons, it turned out, became three of the most accomplished young wrestlers in valley history — even if your average high school sports fan in the area knows nothing about them. Bill Rogers moved to Spokane, where sons Jordan and Chandler starred for Mead High School on their way to careers at Oklahoma State. Chandler Rogers placed fifth in the NCAA Championships in 2017 and eighth the next year.
Bob Rogers, meanwhile, remained in Clarkston, where his wife, Nikki, manages a bank and the two of them run a whitewater rafting business in the summer. Their home is a stone’s throw from Clarkston High School. But as the elder of their two children began showing a distinct talent and resolve on the wrestling mat, they found themselves ushering him away from conventional education.
For one thing, Rylan began taking online courses during middle school, which enabled him to compete in numerous far-flung wrestling tournaments, and also to spend time in the summer with his cousins in Stillwater, Okla. His wrestling education accelerated.
“He was tough even when he was younger, but he started having that self-drive about sixth or seventh grade,” said Colt Heger, who now runs the youth club formerly headed by Bill and Bob Rogers. “He was just one of those guys who just worked his tail off, and he had his dad drive him everywhere, all over the place.
“I was working out with him a little in the mornings. I probably had 30, 40 pounds on him — a kid who’s a seventh-grader and I’m in my 30s — and he was going as hard as he could. I’d beat him, don’t get me wrong, but he wasn’t backing down one bit.”
By that time, the wrestling community had become familiar with Rylan’s precocity.
“When he was a fifth-grader, he could beat most of the Lewiston High School wrestlers,” Bob Rogers said. “I said, ‘I’ll pay you $15 an hour to come and just drill with him.’ They were, like, ‘No way.’
“He eats, drinks and sleeps wrestling. People were like, ‘Why would you push him so hard? I was like, ‘Who’s pushing? He’s pulling: ‘Dad, where are we going to practice tonight? Where are you taking me to wrestle?’ That’s always been his attitude. It’s never been, ‘Oh, I have to practice.’”
With all the traveling and all the medal-winning, Rogers began making a name for himself on a national level, even as he was casting a smaller profile in the L-C Valley.
“I love wrestling more than a lot of people do,” Rylan said. “I fell in love with the sport, and my parents knew that about me, so they got me exposed to the highest level of wrestling. They knew what my goals were and they were willing to make sacrifices in order to help get me there.”
Hence the phone call from Blair. It was surprising for a number of reasons, one of them geographic. The coeducational boarding and day school, located in rural Blairstown, N.J., about 60 miles west of New York, is known primarily for wrestling but also for academics and other successful sports programs. Its enrollment is only about 460, and its 33-person wrestling roster this year includes only five students from west of Ohio. Rylan is the only one from the Pacific Northwest.
“To get an opportunity to go to that school is just unbelievable,” said Randles, who led the Clarkston High School program from 1992-2012. “It’s just one of those things that never happens.”
The unlikelihood wasn’t lost on the Rogers family.
“We took him out there for an interview and to see the campus, and we fell in love with it,” Bob Rogers said. “Really awesome school with some great people. He had to pass some tests, and he passed everything with flying colors.”
Rylan’s parents were taken aback later when they learned the tuition was $65,000 per year. But they were assured their son’s scholarship would cover the vast majority of that. With Rylan enthusiastically on board, they accepted the offer.
“People thought we were nuts,” Bob Rogers said. “If your kid really loves something and you had the opportunity to give them as much of it as they wanted, but you might have to make some sacrifices, would you do it? It’s still early in the game. He’s still got a lot of wrestling. But he loves it out there.”
A quick 6-footer, Rylan has adjusted smoothly to the more aggressive style of wrestling that reigns in the East. After advancing to the quarterfinal round at the National Preps as a freshman last year (gamely competing at 195 to fill a void), Rogers broke through in December with a stunning title at the Walsh Ironman tournament, another top-notch national tourney, in Ohio. Two months later, he gutted out a 5-4 decision in the Nationals Preps championship match, capping a season that occasioned only one loss, to a senior ranked now third in the country and committed to Rutgers.
Rylan and his parents said he’s motivated to meet Blair’s high academic standards partly because of his interest in dentistry and partly because of his goal of competing for a top-flight college program.
“He’s always been really good at school, but I’ve never seen him focus so much on his grades, knowing what that can provide later in life,” Bob Rogers said. “That’s the beauty of Blair. They’re super-strict. His work ethic in the wrestling room is pushed pretty hard outside the wrestling room.”
For a two-hour study hall every night, students must relinquish their cellphones and crack the books. At one point, Rylan stumbled onto a way of circumventing the phone requirement. Having thought he’d damaged his phone, he asked his parents for a replacement. In the meantime, he found a way to repair the original, so he began relinquishing his extra phone for study hall and keeping his functional one. He got caught and was punished, but perhaps given a bit of leniency.
After all, he was 2,000 miles from home.
“The most challenging part is being away from my family,” Rylan said. “It’s not your typical high school career. I will say first-hand that boarding school is not for everybody. It’s really fun living with your classmates and stuff, but there are things you miss about home life.
“In the long run, it’s preparing me best for what I want to do.”
Grummert may be contacted at daleg@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2290.
