Former Bound Brook wrestling standout Nestor Taffur begins 'last run' to Olympics
This year’s first step to the 2024 Summer Olympics is this week at the Pan American Men’s Freestyle Wrestling Championships in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
For former Bound Brook High School standout Nestor Taffur, the level of competition is nothing new. Nor is the traveling.
Since graduating from Boston University in 2014, Taffur has competed in Japan, Pakistan, Russia, Cuba, Norway, Asia, throughout South America and all over Europe. His parents having been born in Colombia, he has dual citizenship and has represented that country in international competition.
The Pan Am is part of the qualifying process for the 2023 Worlds, set for September. The long-term goal is to compete in the 2024 Olympics, to be held in Paris.
“This is the last run,” the 31-year-old said.
And what a run it’s been.
He was a two-time NCAA qualifier at BU, won an Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association title and a Colonial Athletic Association championship. His 119 wins were a school record, highlighted by a senior year of 37-4.
In 2015 he attained All-American honors in the U.S. Open, and over the next three years won national titles in Colombia. In 2017 he won silver at the Pan Am in Brazil.
Between competitions he has been an assistant coach at Franklin & Marshall and Columbia, was a resident athlete of the Lehigh Valley Wrestling Club and the New York City Regional Training Center.
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With a master’s degree in International Business, Taffur now works for a financial technology company. Married and living in Green Brook, he and his wife Marisa, from Watchung, have a 20-month-old son Oliver.
Now competing at 79K (174 pounds), his first match Friday was scheduled against Jon Maynard, a graduate of the University of Buffalo who is wrestling for Barbados. If successful, Taffur would go against top-seeded Jordan Burroughs, a Camden native who wrestled at the University of Nebraska. A U.S. Olympic champion, he is a four-time U.S. Open champ.
That’s a far cry from when he was a 145-pound high school senior who finished fourth in the states. Though he tried football into freshman year, wrestling became his passion beginning in middle school. His buddies wrestled, so the best way to hang out with them was to join them at practice.
“That’s when I got hooked,” he said. “That became my sole focus. I liked the one-on-one aspect, the one-on-one combat. I liked being able to take control of your outcome.’’
That’s when coach Marty Gleason began to have a major impact on the kid. “We call him the Godfather of Bound Brook wrestling,” Taffur said with a smile. “He opened doors for a lot of opportunities for me.”
He recalls the days when Gleason’s mother Joan would host team members and serve homemade cookies, oranges and other such treats. “She was the best,” he said of Mrs. Gleason, a huge wrestling fan who passed in the spring of 2017. When Taffur placed in the Pan Am for the first time, he had dedicated the medal to her. He would present it to her son.
Taffur has two silver and one bronze from Pan Ams as he goes for his fourth medal this weekend.
Calling Bound Brook a wrestling town, Taffur will remain in the sport when his career ends. He has started a wrestling club called BRTC.
“I lived in Bound Brook, now I live in Green Brook, so I called it the Brook Regional Training Center. Obviously it’s super-dedicated to Bound Brook. I’m helping Bound Brook wrestling grow,” he said. “But it’s also focused on helping wrestlers in Somerset County.”
As he remains focused on wrestlers around the world.
Paul Franklin is a freelance reporter for MyCentralJersey.com.
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Pan American Men’s Freestyle Wrestling: Nestor Taffur at Championships
