Wigger impressive on, off mat | Sports | Summerville Journal Scene

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Wigger impressive on, off mat

Published Tuesday, February 14, 2012 10:14 AM

By Roger Lee
Summerville Journal Scene ®

Roger Lee/Journal Scene

Over the years, Jordan Wigger has compiled an impressive collection of wrestling trophies and medals.

Jordan Wigger is one of the nicest young men you could ever meet, unless that introduction happens to come on the wrestling mat.

The Summerville High School senior is polite and despite the enormous success he has experienced as an athlete remains very grounded. He maintains an A average while taking AP courses and has taken every leadership class his school offers.

Wigger plays four musical instruments and is a member of the St. Paul’s Church youth band. On Friday nights in the fall he puts on a greenman suit and roams the sidelines at SHS football games to pump up the crowd and he has won multiple dance contests at school functions. He also takes time out of his busy training schedule to coach kids in the local takedown club.

“Someone did it for me so if I’m not willing to do it for someone else what kind of person would that make me,” Wigger said. “Plus I enjoy working with the kids. I get excited when I see them do a move right.”

But when Wigger steps onto the mat to compete being a nice guy is the furthest thing from his mind. He started wrestling when he was 5 and at a young age his dad, a former collegiate wrestler and current SHS assistant coach, had him join The Citadel youth wrestling club. Under the guidance of coaches such as Jeff Ragan, Wigger began to quickly develop.

The wrestler says the training was demanding, but invaluable. As he got older, he had opportunities to train with wrestlers who had successful collegiate careers, which helped him prepare both mentally and physically for what was to come.

“I guess you could say that made me a little nastier,” Wigger said. “By the time we were done, I had developed the philosophy that while I have respect for my opponents, if you are going to step on the mat with me I’m not going to hold back. Wrestling is a tough sport so I’m going to basically try and break you. It’s a strategy; if you beat a guy bad he isn’t going to want to come back a second time. If you punish him or show him he can’t touch you then you won’t have to worry about him in the future plus then by default other people will be kind of afraid of you.”

That mentality has served Wigger well.

He is Summerville’s all-time leader in wins with 165 and pins with 133. He has earned Outstanding Wrestler honors in various tournaments as well as three individual high school state championships.

If he earns a fourth, as expected, during the state championships later this month he will be one of only three wrestlers in state history to earn four AAAA titles. Aaron Hansen, Wigger’s former Green Wave training partner, and Robbie Bell currently are the only wrestlers to achieve that goal.

Wigger has a165-2 record as a high school grappler. He has not lost since his freshman year when he lost one match to a multiple All-American wrestler from Virginia and another when he wrestled up a weight class to face a guy who placed in that class during the state finals three straight years.

Wigger has not had an offensive point scored on him in two years. He was last scored on as a sophomore when he gave up a takedown and a reversal. He has only wrestled nine full matches in the last four years; the rest he won either by pin or technical fall. If you take away the forfeits he has received, he has won by pin in an astounding 94 percent of his matches.

He is third on the state’s all-time pins list, but the two wrestlers ahead of him wrestled over 100 more matches than him.

Wigger says coaches Daryl Tucker and Tim Marzuola helped him become more technically sound once he became a high school wrestler. However, he experienced great success on the mat before he reached high school.

In 2007, Wigger made his biggest splash on the national scene to date when he won the dominator award that goes to the wrestler who garners the most points during tournaments held across the nation.

He has been ranked as high as eighth for his class nationally and is the first South Carolina wrestler to become a five-time USAW Fargo All-American. He is also the first from the state to be named a US National Team Member for both Freestyle and Greco Roman.

Wigger has fully funded access to the Olympic Training Center. In other words: Olympic coaches are willing to pay for his room and board at the training center so he can receive the highest quality of training and they can monitor his development to see if he may have what it takes to become an Olympic wrestler.

He is a National Coaches Association High School All-American and has won a state title in Freestyle every year since he was 5. He has won a state title in Greco Roman every year since they started having a Greco Roman State Championship when he was 7, with the exception of last year when he was competing in the world team trials.

As a youngster, he won a state championship every year he competed in AAU Youth Folkstyle Championships.

Contact Roger Lee @ 873-9424 ext. 213 or rlee@journalscene.com

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