Wayland's royal wrestling family: Coach celebrates milestone continuing Chase tradition

WAYLAND - His last name never left Sean Chase another choice.

HIs dad wrestled and coached Wayland wrestling. Uncles, cousins, brother-in-law, his brother, everybody wrestled.

"It's in my blood," Chase said. "I don't think I've ever had a choice not to do it."

At least he was born into the right family. Chase has coached Wayland's wrestling team since 2007. He earned his 300th career win on Jan. 6 at the Gloucester quad.

"It reminds me of how privileged I am to be able to work with some amazing athletes. I joke I'm just the bus driver, and on some days I really am," Chase said. "I've bene blessed with some amazing athletes. They're the ones that are cutting weight, getting bloody noses and going through the grind of practice."

The honor represents the program more than Chase, a Wayland grad, himself. He's had the same group of assistants since 2000. Lee Krasnoo and Scott Parseghian were assistants with Chase under his father Gary, who has over 200 wins himself, for the better part of a decade until Scott assumed the mantle in 2007.

Gary was beside him when Sean notched the 300th victory, and his son Cole Chase won a match in the lineup.

"It's kind of like life coming full circle," Sean said. "Not many people can say they have opportunities like that to share with extended family."

'We start from the ground up'

They built those opportunities together. Wayland turns athletes into wrestlers far more often than it polishes star grapplers.

"In other communities you see the specialization everywhere. We're drawing from a pool of athletes that do everything, so we treat the first day of the season the same for everyone," Sean said. "We just assume you've never wrestled before, and we start from the ground up. We're always a little behind everyone else at the beginning of year, but we tend to catch up as the season progresses."

In those early sessions, and throughout a wrestling season, Sean gets to teach as much as he coaches. He is a teacher by trade, social studies and business at the high school, and specializes in both the micro and macro aspects of wrestling.

"I find there's more teaching in the wrestling room than there is on the practice field or anywhere else. That's something that kind of keeps me coming back every day," Sean said. "You teach the athletes the sport and then you watch them progress on the mat and that gives you that warm kind of fuzzy teacher and coach feeling."

Sabermetrics and analytics

Sean Chase can predict most of how a wrestling match will go before any of the wrestlers line up. That can be fun and "a downer," he said. It allows him to plan each match and let the athletes know what they need to do to help the team win, whether that's avoid a pin or push for one to score bonus points.

"It's almost like a wrestling version of sabermetrics and analytics," he said.

He watches most of the matches from a chair next to his father while Parseghian and Krasnoo stand. Unless one of his Warriors is close to a pin or being pinned. Then he offers specific, technical instruction.

"It's cool to have a coach who knows the ins and outs of all the little tricks," Wayland junior captain Paul Lang said. "That helps us be better as a team."

He's also a resource in and out of practice. Whenever wrestlers have questions about a drill or suggestion during a match, he explains the reasoning.

"Whenever we have a question like 'Why would he do that?' Later on toward the end we're like, 'that was smart.' I think he's one of the smartest people in the sport," Cole Chase said. "It takes a lot to get to 300 wins. You can't do that without being one of the smartest coaches out there."

The language of wrestling: Holliston senior wrestler Zak Robinson shares 'special bond' with brother

Master motivator

Sometimes his tricks involve extra motivation. Last season, Wayland lost a dual meet against Concord-Carlisle the Warriors felt they could have wrestled better during. The Patriots took a photo flexing in the gym. Scott Chase didn't let his team forget it ahead of Wednesday's rematch.

"He was like, 'Look if you don't want to beat these guys so bad, then I don't know what to tell you,'" Cole said.

Wayland powered through the rematch to win 52-28. The Warriors then gathered in the center of the mat and bared their chests, posing for their own flex photo.

"That was a moment that bothered me a lot, and it bothered the boys a lot. They had kind of circled this date on the calendar," Sean said. "That was all the motivation they needed to have a team disrespect them like that in their gym, really out of nowhere and for no reason. It added fuel to the fire."

Men of the century: Milford's Mikey Boulanger joins Aidan Baum in wrestling 100 wins club

Sean has stoked that fire for more than a decade. As often as he demonstrates a technique or explains a situation, the teacher continually imparts lessons that apply beyond the mat.

"The biggest one is just discipline, and then knowing how to get back up when you get knocked down," Sean said.

Not bad for a bus driver.

Contact Kyle Grabowski at kgrabowski@gannett.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @kylegrbwsk.

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Wayland wrestling coach Sean Chase notches 300 career wins