Wrestling steered new Central NY coach away from ‘dark road’ and to a job replacing legend at his old school

Phoenix, N.Y. — Three practices into the tenure of new Phoenix wrestling coach Ross McFarland Jr., his pupils were already getting a little chesty.

Several bragged as they walked past, taunting him that they almost put him into a defensive position in one-on-one drills, or even more whimsically, were just this close to taking him down.

Considering that McFarland, 24, is a former state champ at the school and is fresh off a successful career at Hofstra, the chances of any current Firebird scoring even a point on their coach in real competition are minuscule.

But that’s not the point, and McFarland wasn’t going to argue too strenuously otherwise. He wants his wrestlers to believe that with hard work, they are capable of things that might now seem impossible. Even if that means toying with them just enough to delude them into thinking they can hang with him on the mat.

“Younger kids, I can’t just kill them. You have to make them pretend. I let them take me down right to my butt. And I flip them over and they’re like, ‘Oh, my God, I almost got you,’” he said. “It makes them want to work harder. Because they’re like, ‘Oh, my God. I almost took down a Division I wrestler who was a national qualifier.”

Regardless of how well his wrestlers eventually perform, the real lesson he hopes to teach them runs deeper — regardless of your goals, it’s possible to start from almost nothing and reach them.

In McFarland’s case, that means going almost nowhere and yet getting so very far at the same time. He loves his hometown and has always wanted to settle down there and coach the sport. Now he is, in large part because a wrestling legend decided he was ready.

Gene Mills, one of the United States’ all-time great wrestlers, doesn’t step aside for anyone. But in McFarland’s case, he made an exception. Mills decided last summer to resign as head coach so that McFarland could have the job, although Mills is staying on as an assistant.

“I’m looking long term for the Phoenix community and wrestling,” Mills said. “I’ve been talking to him about it since high school. All through college, I talked to him about it. I told him I think he’d be great with kids and this is something I think he’d love to do.”

McFarland agrees, but the reason has nothing to do with wins and trophies.

He is unfailingly polite and grateful, thanking high school teachers, college professors and coaches at the end of every class or workout. Without the tutelage of adults like Mills and Phoenix athletic director John Jeffries, McFarland envisions a scenario where he ended up at a place much different than his personal magic kingdom of the Phoenix wrestling room.

He wants to make sure that same pathway is available to the students who come after him.

“Every single coach I’ve ever had ... they had such a lasting impact on me that I still remember and I carry to this day. And I’ll forever be grateful for them,” he said. “And if it wasn’t for them, I would not be where I am today at all. I’d be down some dark road, I’m sure. Maybe not that dark, but ... I would not be where I am today.”

One of Mills’ many talents is his knack for coming up with rhyming nicknames on the spot. When he first met McFarland as a third-grader, he signed an autograph to “Ross the Boss.”

“He’s very tenacious. He had a lot of grit, and he was fun to watch,” Mills recalled.

The nickname stuck with McFarland for the rest of his career. It turned out to be prophetic, but fulfilling it followed a twisty road.

McFarland grew up in a trailer park with his parents, two siblings and great-grandmother. Space was tight, but he said his parents worked hard to make sure the children had everything they needed.

“I think it definitely reflects how I am on the mat and how I am in my work,” McFarland said of his upbringing. “I realized I didn’t give a (darn) where I lived. I was literally proud of it because my mom and dad worked their butt off to give me everything I wanted. And then they instilled it in me at a young age, like, ‘Hey, wrestling is your escape (from) poverty. That’s your ticket to college.’ So they took me to everything in any practice, any camp, any tournament, because they knew that was my escape.”

McFarland said he always loved wrestling, just not the kind that would someday dictate his future. He was initially mesmerized by pro wrestling and thought that spectacle would be cool to try. But his parents encouraged him to take a look at the real form of the sport, and McFarland eventually agreed.

Success came gradually, but by the time he reached high school, he was a force. He was a state finalist four straight years and claimed the state 170-pound title as a junior.

School, however, was a far tougher challenge. McFarland said he was an indifferent student, always doing just enough to get by.

Mills said he used to bring McFarland to after-school work sessions and sit next to him while he got started. Mills often had to then leave to tend to other responsibilities, and inevitably, he’d catch McFarland after he bolted class to mess around elsewhere in the school.

“Wrestling was everything to me. So that’s all I cared about at that age,” McFarland said. “And I didn’t really have a big push on academics towards me, so I excelled well in wrestling. It took me to get into college to realize, whoa, I have to care about academics in order for me to wrestle. If you’re failing one class, you’re getting booted off a team. You’re not wrestling anymore.”

Mills always saw potential in McFarland that extended well beyond his wrestling days. That point was driven home not by any pinnacle feat but rather by the lowest moment of his high school career.

McFarland looked unstoppable as a senior, breezing into the state finals. He was in control of that match and headed toward another championship when his opponent claimed McFarland bit him.

Mills and McFarland heatedly disputed that accusation, but the referee sided with the other wrestler and disqualified McFarland. Moments later, Mills found McFarland bawling in the hallway.

But the tears didn’t flow from self-pity. Mills, a former Syracuse University wrestler, was a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic team and a heavy favorite to win gold in Moscow. But Mills was denied that opportunity when President Jimmy Carter made the team boycott the Games as a protest over Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan.

Almost four decades later, McFarland told Mills he was crying not because he was cheated out of repeating as state champ but because he felt guilty about feeling bad when his own coach was denied a much bigger prize.

Mills was stunned by McFarland’s perspective in that wrenching moment. Even today, he still chokes up when recounting it.

“I don’t know anybody who would have had that kind of a thought process,” Mills said. ”And it kind of brought me to tears to think that in such a moment that devastated him, that he would turn it around and think of somebody else first. That’s a great human being right there."

McFarland’s drive paid off with a scholarship to Hofstra, where he won the Eastern championships his final season and qualified for the NCAA Tournament. He said he started to push himself academically and his graduation made him the first person among all his close relatives to earn a college degree. He is now pursuing his master’s degree.

McFarland looked around for coaching jobs and was on the cusp of taking a college position in California. Mills, though, had other plans.

Mills, 67, decided to retire as a phys-ed teacher after last year. That created a potential opening for McFarland to fulfill his dream of working at his former school.

Mills had expected to stay on as wrestling coach. But he also knew it would be better if the wrestling coach were also someone who was in school during the day. So Mills cleared out his office and encouraged McFarland to make a pitch to take the top spot while he mentored as an assistant.

“He’s a kid who’s very thankful for what he has and he’s very understanding of other people,” Mills said. “And he realizes that nobody knows what other people are going through in their lives. They might be struggling. So he always tries to be a positive light to other people. And I wanted that for the Phoenix community.”

Replacing a coach who was so iconic would pose a challenge for anyone, much less a rookie leader. But McFarland plans on paying tribute to his mentor not necessarily by dominating on the mat but by making sure, like Mills did, that the wrestlers get what they want out of the sport.

“Not every kid is here about winning. Not every kid is here to win a state title. Not everybody really cares about the sport of wrestling like I do,” he said. “So that’s one aspect where I want to adopt from him, which is making sure every kid is a good person and caring about them on a personal level. Instead of being a number, a name on a list, being like, ‘Oh, you want to lose weight? Wrestle, lose 10 pounds. If you want to win a section title, we’ll work with you to try to give you a section title.’ So I’m really looking forward to the aspect of that.”

McFarland looks back at Mills’ early designation as the boss and appreciates the irony of him now holding that title over his old coach. But it’s an evolving process. Mills has retained the larger of two desks in the coaches’ office, and he is still schooling McFarland in all the administrative work required by the job.

But when it comes to the most important prep work for coaching, McFarland has been absorbing the lessons of how to set a good example for years.

“Sometimes I look back and I’m like, what in the world? It felt like I was a freshman in high school yesterday because it wasn’t that long ago,” McFarland said. “So now, flash back to today and hearing (Mills) whistle and knowing that those kids look at me like I looked at him, it’s so gratifying. It makes me want to cry, because I know I was in that same point. I was in that same seat. And that’s why I think I’ll succeed so well here, specifically because I literally sat in the same seat as them. I know their struggles because I lived them myself. I know I can help guide them, not just as wrestlers, but as human beings.”