Aaron Gottesman, who is a graduate of Lakewood High School, has been named the varsity wrestling coach at Jackson Memorial High School. Gottesman has been an assistant coach at Jackson Memorial for the past four years. JEFF GRANIT staff Taking over a high school wrestling program that just won its second straight NJSIAAGroup IV state team championship is a formidable challenge, but Aaron Gottesman believes he is up for the task after his recent appointment as the Jackson Memorial High School head coach.
Gottesman served as an assistant at Jackson Memorial for four years under former coach DougWithstandley.
“I helped in a majority of areas,” Gottesman said this week. “Doug was a great coach. Our team is like a big family. This is obviously an honor. Over the last 15 years, there’s really been a resurgence, and the Shore Conference is the best in New Jersey. This is a coach’s dream.”
But it would have been an unlikely scenario less than a year ago when Gottesman was on a personal comeback after being hospitalized with a brain tumor, later proven benign, he said in published reports.
Over the past four years, Withstandley’s teams went 81-14 in dual meets, but Gottesman, a former coach at his alma mater, Lakewood High School, said it goes much further back than that period of time.
The Jaguars’ outstanding wrestling history goes back to Bernie Reider, the team’s first coach, and it continued under the direction of Al Aires and Scott Goodale.
Withstandley took the reins when Goodale left to become the head wrestling coach at Rutgers University, and now the job has been passed to Gottesman.
“To me, it won’t be much different, although every coach brings a little something different,” said Gottesman. “To me, it’s an honor to take on what they have done. Wrestling has become more of a spotlight sport, more recognized in New Jersey.”
Dallas Winston, a 40-match winner whose only loss in New Jersey was in the NJSIAA state tournament finals at 189 pounds, will lead the way for his senior year with a “good nucleus” from a team that was 23-5 in dual meets and the Shore Confer- ence Tournament runner-up. Six dual-meet victories came over state finalists Long Branch, Southern Regional, Camden Catholic, Delbarton, South Plainfield and High Point.
Assistant coaches Drew Gibson and Tony Compitello remain. Most of the returning Jackson Memorial wrestlers are par- ticipating again in the Rutgers camp and in the Toms River South duals this summer. “Last season puts a target on our backs, but the kids are used to it,” Gottesman said. “The kids have had great seasons the last 12, 13 years. The goal is not to be the best in [Shore Conference] A South, but in the country. “I would much rather we have the challenge of being at the top rather than fifth in the conference. The high standards we have here put the bar at that level.
“For us to be ranked [high] in the state, everyone has to be at the right weight class, to stay healthy and have a good preseason and summer. The goal is that our kids believe in what our staff believes in. I believe we have the talent. We have a great rec program and a great middle school program and we have 15 to 20 kids over the last five years who have gone on to [wrestle in] college,” Gottesman said.
Heavyweight Joe Nolan, who was 34-8 and a District 21 champion, leads the wrestlers graduated off last year’s team with some big holes to fill, along with third-place Region VI finishers Rob Hennings at 160 pounds in a 24-13 season, and Mike Shupin, who was 25-6 at 119 pounds.
But Gottesman spoke well of a large group of promising returnees led by the Royle brothers — Brad and Randy — who were 20-match winners as they enter their senior year, as well as Alec Huxford, who reached the state championships as a sophomore at 103 pounds. Huxford was 28-10. Spencer Young, who will be a junior, was a district champion at 125 and won 25 bouts.
Gottesman said he also is looking for the return of Brian Hamann, who was injured at the end of the 2010-11 season.
Hamann was expected to make a run back into the state tournament, where he finished fourth as a freshman and had 31 victories at 103 pounds that season. He won 18 bouts last season before the injury.
Gottesman said he also will look to the experience of third-year varsity wrestler Dylan Harrington, a rising senior, in the upper weights, and the continued progress of 112-pounder Peter Rinaldi, who saw spot action in his freshman season at 103 pounds.
“It’s the kids buying into the system, and I know if the kids perform 100 percent, the chips will fall where they may,” Gottesman said.