S P O RTS
Big Wins, Hard Goodbyes A SUCCE SSFUL WRE STLING TEAM ENDS ITS TIME IN THE CAGE By Craig Morgan ’84
T
he final practice before national champion-
ships had ended. Just a handful of wrestlers and coaches remained as Quinn Abrams ’17 sat down on a wrestling mat inside the Thompson Cage to meditate on the goals ahead and drink in what had become, for him, a spiritual place. “I started wrestling when I was in fourth grade and I’ve been in so many rooms without enough ventilation, rooms that were too cold so you can’t sweat, or rooms where the ceiling is too high so the moisture rises,” Abrams says. “I can’t find anything to complain about in that room. I love the graffiti that tells the history of the program, I love the
Henry Lagasse ’19 takes on an opponent at nationals.
mats, the ceiling structures — I really do. “I’ve bled in that room, I’ve sweat in that room and I’ve cried in it. To me, that wrestling room is perfect and I’m going to miss it.” The 87-year-old Thompson Cage and its historic wrestling room will give way to a new 84,500-squarefoot field house with a 200-meter track and four indoor tennis courts on the site of the old Cage. The old cage will be torn down this summer and the new facility, which is scheduled to open in 2017, will house a new wrestling room located on a mezzanine that overlooks the track and tennis courts.
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Abrams and the Exeter wrestling team hope to smooth the transition from old to new next season. “We’ve got a great group of seniors coming back next year,” coach David Hudson says. “We didn’t feel like we put everything together like we could have this season, but I feel like we did everything we could given the challenges we faced.” By most standards, the wrestling team concluded another successful season in February. The team won its second consecutive Class A title and the 19th in its history, giving it more titles than any school. Exeter also took second place at the New England Championships with four individuals winning titles, and it finished 17th at nationals out of 137 teams. The bar for this program is set a bit higher, however. “Ted Seabrook was the head coach here for decades and he’s the one who deserves the credit for establishing it and building the most successful program in New England,” says Hudson, who took over in 1982. “I feel very fortunate to have inherited a program with such a long tradition.” Hudson left the program in the 1990-91 season to coach at St. Lawrence University, handing the reins to now Dean of Faculty Ethan Shapiro, but he returned in 1999 and has been at the helm with Shapiro ever since. “Exeter is a unique place in the demands it puts on the kids and it’s important for us to understand what they’re going through,” Hudson says, “but it’s also important for them to understand what they need to do in season to balance their time between homework, practice, travel on weekends and taking care of their bodies. “They learn a lot of valuable lessons and we’ve been in the business long enough now that we get to see these great kids coming back and telling us how their wrestling experience helped them. That’s very rewarding.” Steve Cerrone ’16 says when he arrived at Exeter in 2014, he noticed a dramatic difference between the academy’s culture and what he had experienced for three years at his high school in Vermont. “It’s just obvious that hard work has been ingrained into every person here,” he says. “At this school, you know you can’t loaf around, whether you’re doing your school
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