Brothers' Success Just Start for Beaverton
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
November 28, 2018
In a movie, this season and the future of the Beaverton wrestling program would be the epilogue, explained to us with words on the screen while triumphant music played.
When Eric and Kyle Cassiday won Division 4 individual MHSAA championships in back-to-back matches last season with their father Bryan – who had started the program four years earlier – coaching matside, the script could have been completed.
“It’s one of the top five moments of my entire life,” said Kyle Cassiday, now a senior at Beaverton. “(After my match) all I could focus on was Eric – he went through so much with injuries, so to see him win it was amazing.”
But while the Cassidays are certainly at the heart of the program, creating this program wasn’t just about them. And there are plenty more memories to be made.
“I wanted to provide an opportunity for the kids who had been through the youth program, and those that wanted to join, to at least experience what I experienced in high school wrestling,” Bryan Cassiday said. “We were all brothers, and I wanted them to get to be able to do that. We had a lot of help (from outside the program). We’ve had a lot of people helping to influence a lot of different kids. It’s been a wonderful experience.”
Bryan Cassiday is a Gladwin graduate who coached the youth program there. That included his sons Eric, Kyle and Jacob, who started when they were elementary and preschool age. Bryan continued to coach when the family moved to Beaverton, but there appeared to be a cap on how much time they could be involved with the sport and attend their new school, as Beaverton didn’t have a wrestling program.
When Eric was about to enter high school, the Cassidays started looking at options to transfer, going as far as having a family vote at the dinner table. Kyle voted for Beaverton. Little did he or his family know that was about to become an option.
“Some of the football coaches came to me and said, ‘What would it take to start a program?’” Bryan Cassiday said. “We put together some numbers on what it would cost, did some fundraising, and started one.”
For the kids, it was a relief.
“I was so happy,” Kyle said. “I didn’t want to leave my friends. They deserved to wrestle as much as we did. It was more than just for me.”
That first season, Beaverton had 12 or 13 wrestlers, Bryan Cassiday said, including a solid core of youth wrestlers who were finally able to stay at their home school, like Eric.
By Year 3 of the program, the three boys all were part of it, with Jacob as a freshman, Kyle a sophomore and Eric a junior.
Wrestling was and is a way of life for the Cassidays, who have a mat in the garage to train – or settle a dispute, even if that was rare and mostly in the past.
“It doesn’t matter what season it is, we’re always looking forward to wrestling,” said Jacob Cassiday, who was a Finals qualifier at 152 pounds a year ago. “We don’t wrestle much in the house. We broke a couple light fixtures, then that stopped.”
For Jacob, growing up as the youngest of four children (they have an older sister, Brooke, who is 21), allowed him to learn quite a bit.
“I’ve always been the smaller one, and I’ve always had to work hard,” he said. “I never had it easy, and they never did either. I was a little pudgy, and they helped me get into shape, then helped me with getting through wrestling. They taught me how to work hard. My oldest brother Eric had probably the best motivation I’ve ever seen. He was always in the weight room or on the mat or on the football field. There was no offseason. And, of course, they taught me how to be humble, because there’s always someone out there who’s better.”
The older brothers got to see each other plenty in practice, as Kyle was at 189 pounds and Eric at 215 a year ago.
“We’re both really competitive – we love to win, it’s what we strive to do,” Kyle said. “Halfway through the year, we started to change our perspective and realized we had a chance at winning. We would point each other to different techniques. Sometimes it got pretty intense, and we’d get pretty heated.”
Brotherly tensions aren’t something Dad worries much about spilling over, though.
“Really very rarely did they ever have problems,” Bryan said. “There was a point in the season when I was trying to get everybody on edge a little bit, and there were a couple times I had to separate them, but nothing out of control; you could just tell they were wanting it. Generally speaking, to be very honest, I’ve seen siblings that argue and fight – my kids don’t do that. They hunt together, they wrestle together, they do pretty much everything together.”
They eventually won Division 4 titles together. At last winter’s Finals at Ford Field, Kyle defeated TJ Rizor of Leroy Pine River 8-1 in the 189-pound final, while Eric followed with a 4-0 win against Chase Gibson of Bronson at 215.
“There will never be a way, honestly, to describe what happened,” Bryan said. “I couldn’t talk. I was having a hard time coping with it, to be honest with you. It’s hard to become a state champion. It was the culmination of the years and years of hard work and the passion they put into it. They continued to work, and they got paid in the end.”
Kyle said his championship wouldn’t have meant nearly as much had his brother not won. It’s something they’ll be able to talk about when they’re 40, he said.
But there’s more work to do for all of the Cassidays and the program as a whole. Eric, who is now a freshman at Saginaw Valley State University, comes back home to help his dad coach. Kyle is looking to repeat as a Finals champ, and Jacob wants to take the next step at Ford Field and make his way onto the podium.
The program itself has more building to do, but it does have a solid core heading into this year as Cameron Austin and Jack Owens (fifth last season at 171) join the younger Cassidays as returning Finals qualifiers. For now, the top priority, Bryan Cassiday said, is improving every day.
In just four years, Beaverton wrestling has started to make a name for itself. Growing that name, Kyle Cassiday said, would be an even greater accomplishment that the incredible end to last season.
“I’d be more proud of building a successful program than a championship because it’s an end result,” he said. “It will be creating something for more than just me. It would be for a lot of different people.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Kyle Cassiday celebrates as he’s signaled the winner of last season’s Division 4 championship match at 189 pounds. (Middle) Eric and Kyle Cassiday share an embrace after Eric followed up with the win at 215 at Ford Field. (Click to see more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Dundee's Roberts Retires as 1st to 10 Finals Championships
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
March 9, 2022
Tim Roberts had an awakening.
After winning the Division 3 championship in 2007, his Dundee Vikings lost in three consecutive Finals matches. Each were excruciating losses – 30-27, 33-25 and 24-23.
“We had a good program,” Roberts said. “We were doing well. But there was a period there where we were in the running but not winning. In 2011, I think it was the pinnacle. I realized we had to be different.
“We’d get close every year and lose at the state tournament. Too many times we were close. I knew we had to do something different.”
Not many coaches would have had the guts to change a program that had the success of Dundee, but Roberts wanted something more. The results speak for themselves.
The Vikings recently captured their fifth consecutive Division 3 title and ninth since 2011. The latest championship gave Roberts 10 total. He is the first wrestling coach in state history to win 10 Finals titles.
“We’ve been really fortunate,” said Roberts, who announced at last weekend’s Individual Wrestling Finals that he was retiring after 23 seasons and more than 500 career wins at Dundee. “It’s pretty cool to be the first to 10. There’s a lot of great coaches on that list with a lot of championships. It represents a lot of hard work by a lot of people.”
Roberts went into this Finals weekend tied with another coach from Monroe County, Bill Regnier, with nine championships. Roberts was an assistant at Dundee when Regnier coached his final match for Bedford. He’s a coach that Roberts still holds in high regard.
“He’s the legend,” Roberts said. “In every conversation, every poll, every time you talk about, Bill Regnier is considered the best wrestling coach ever in the state. To be mentioned in the same sentence as him is something special. He really is the legend.”
Hudson’s Scott Marry tied Regnier for second place on the list with his ninth Finals title last weekend. Lowell’s R.J. Boudro won his eighth title. Mike Rodriguez won seven at Detroit Catholic Central and one at River Rouge, and Mitch Hancock has won eight at Detroit Catholic Central.
“I might have been the first to 10, but I won’t be the last,” Roberts said. “There are a lot of great coaches still coaching with a lot of championships. Scott Marry is not done winning state titles. He’ll be at 10 real quick. R.J. has won eight in eight tries.
“I don’t think 10 will stand long.”
Roberts’ run is remarkable, nonetheless. His Vikings won a District title all 23 years he was head coach and have won 30 straight overall. Dundee won its Regional in 22 of his 23 years.
Roberts doesn’t beat around the bush about Dundee’s goals every year. League championships are nice, District and Regional championships help fill up the trophy case. But, for the Vikings, winning the Finals championship is always the goal.
“That sounds arrogant, I know,” Roberts said, “but that’s the way it is. That is the goal every year. In all 23 years I coached, that was the goal.”
Roberts said his changes to the program around 2011 included adding strength training to the Dundee repertoire, and that was when Vikings coaches also started focusing more on the mental approach to the sport.
“After 2011, we hit our stride,” he said.
Roberts gives a lot of credit for the “Viking Way” to others in the program.
“Doing it this way starts long before the varsity level,” he said. “The kids club has to be strong. The middle school program has to be strong. You have to have a coaching staff on the same page and dedicated to all aspects of the team. It’s not one person, not even close.”
Roberts learned under Jim Wittibslager, who led Dundee to four straight Finals championships from 1995-98.
“That put me on a really good path,” Roberts said. “I learned how all of this works. Over time, you keep learning. You figure things out as you go. You have to build relationships with a lot of people because you can’t do this alone, not if you want to sustain success.”
Roberts has won numerous coaching honors, local and state, and was named the National Wrestling Coaches Association Boys Coach of the Year in 2020. The honors are likely to continue after this season. Dundee defeated Alma 55-12 in the Division 3 Final to conclude another dominating season.
Roberts said he had an idea this would be his last coaching the Vikings.
“Coming into this season, I was pretty sure I was going to be done,” he said. “As the season went on, I realized that it would be. This isn’t a decision I took lightly. I’ve pretty much been doing this my whole adult life.”
Roberts said no one should expect Dundee to fall off the mountain. Six Individual Finals placers were underclassmen, and kids from the middle school team to the youth programs won multiple championships.
“There are a lot of good people in place and some good wrestlers coming up,” he said. “The youth club is doing really well. It’s just time. It’s time to let someone else who has the passion and drive to do this take over.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Dundee coach Tim Roberts shows his characteristic celebratory enthusiasm during last weekend’s Individual Wrestling Finals. (Middle) Bill Regnier, here in 2009, built a legendary career at Temperance Bedford. (Below) Roberts holds up his team’s 2020 Division 3 team championship trophy. (Roberts photos by Tom Hawley; Regnier photo courtesy of the Monroe News.)