Brandon High School Wrestling Coach Russ Cozart, Team, Town Engage In Streak Speak - # - MyPaperNow.com

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By LINDA CHION KENNEY (UPDATED Jan. 14; Original posting Jan. 8; MORE TO COME) - Returning to school Jan. 8, teacher Russ Cozart entered Brandon High School with his first loss ever as the school's wrestling coach, a position he has held for more than a quarter-century. It's a streak that started seven years before his 27-year tenure at Brandon, and Cozart said he felt the pressure of that streak from day one. How did he feel driving back to work? "I was euphoric," he said. To understand how this teacher, coach, parent and world-class competitor could reflect so positively on the streak's end, check out this growing collection of pictures and oral histories, which will become a part of the Our Town Histories "Something Is Eternal" series of town remembrances. To participate, contact Linda Chion Kenney at 813-389-1809.
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Monday, Jan. 7, 2008 was the first day back to school for Hillsborough County teachers. Russ Cozart, who has taught at Brandon High School for 27 years, made his way back with his first-ever defeat as the school's wrestling coach. The "streak" was seven years old when Cozart replaced Brandon High wrestling coach Jim Graves. Cozart had hoped to set the nation's record for high school wrestling, and he did. Then he hoped to set the record for any high school sport; he did that, too, in 1997. Finally, on Jan. 5, 2008, the streak ended -- some 459 consecutive victories later. How Cozart reacted, his first day back at school, says a lot about the man, the town and the streak. Read on by clicking each individual photo.

"I'm a coach. I'm a teacher," said Russ Cozart in his office Jan. 7, two days after his record at Brandon High registered its first loss against 459 wins. "My greatest teaching moment so far in my career, besides raising my sons, my greatest moment was when we were beat and I walked across the mat and congratulated the coach. It was not planned. That's what I felt at that moment. To teach people how somebody who has a lot to lose, and they lose it, how they should act. I did it for the fans, I did it for my team, I did it for the other coaches in the bleachers." Cozart said he had often thought about how he would react to that fateful day. "I had seen this day many times. What am I going to do the night I get beat? I envisioned almost everything. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? At that moment I knew what to do. It was a very nontraditional thing to do. I wanted to make a gesture that was unusual, that would show how much I cared. All eyes were on me and I wanted to show everybody how I felt. I didn't want anybody walking out of that gym mad at a kid, mat at the oppossing team, mad at a ref. I wanted everybody to realize I was totally accepting the whote thing and that they should share it with me." Cozart said he "threw down the olive branch and embraced the competitor" and that he wanted everybody else to do the same. It was the end of a long journey for Cozart. "When they hired me 28 years ago the streak was seven years old and immediately, from the first day, I had to live with the streak," he said. "It was always in the back of my mind. It was immediate pressure. That you can win every dual meet, fill every weight class with a quality wrestler from the little guy through the big guy, is not an easy thing. And I lived with that for 28 years."

Russ Cozart with the youngest of his two sons, Joey, a sophomore on the team. His son, Rocky, was a three-time Florida state champion and three-time junior freestyle national champion, completing his Brandon High School career with a 187-4 record. Cozart's kids have lived with the streak their whole lives. So, too, their mother, Jeanna. "Once I got the job, I looked in the record books and saw that the longest high school wrestling streak stood at 175 dual matches," Cozart said. "I thought, 'Man, if we could just break that!' I worked my butt off until we got to 176 (in 1988). That was the first pressure point. Then I looked in the record book and found the longest streak for any high school sport was 292. We had to win 100 more dual meets to get to that point and I thought, 'Man, we can do that!' And we went to work on it. When that night happened, when we hit 293 in 1997, a little bit of pressure went off me. Then I could lose. But then I started having some monster teams. I thought, 'if we can make the streak last a little bit longer, when we do lose, it will be that much harder to get to." Consider it done: the record now, thanks to Brandon High and Russ Cozart: 459 wins.

Russ Cozart, center, with Brandon High School Alumni Association President Karen Rodriguez and former president Marvin Lopez. Cozart was inducted into the group's Hall of Fame in 2007. "I was shocked," Rodriguez said about the streak's end. "I think I took it for granted that we would always win."

"It was a great match," Marvin Lopez, right, said about the Jan. 5, 2008 match that broke the streak. "The streak had to come to an end. It was a streak, but now we've got the record. Everybody else has to climb that mountain and top it." Lopez shakes coach Russ Cozart's hand as Brandon High School Alumni Association President Karen Rodriguez looks on.

Joe Cozart wears the shirt that boasted Brandon High's 400th victory. His coach, and dad, Russ Cozart, left, said he instituted the Jim Graves "Beat the Streak" tournament to lay to rest the naysayers who said Brandon continued winning because it stacked the deck. "Okay, I said, we're going to open it up to anybody, anybody can come and try to beat the streak," said Cozart, who named the streak for his predecessor, Jim Graves, who took the team through seven yars of the streak. "I knew it would happen there, in our gym, and I knew if it was a close match the gym would be packed. And that's exactly what happened." Cozart said he knew this year would be a tough one. "The last five years I had monster teams," he said. "We stepped on the mat and said, 'You're not going to beat us. We're too good.' I had to hold my guys back, they were so good. But this year it was a little bit different." Moreover, he added, "when those three teams, Miami South Dade, Palmetto Ridge out of Naples and Manatee High Schooli n Bradenton, signed up for the tournament, I knew we were in trouble, but did I tell them, 'No, you can't come?' " No, he didn't, and Brandon lost to South Dade. Cozart has said he wanted to be the coach on whose watch the streak ended. "I set this team up to get beat (with the tournament) and I said I would stay until the streak was over. Both those things have been accomplished."

Monday, Jan. 7, 2008 was the first day back to school for Hillsborough County teachers. Russ Cozart, who has taught at Brandon High School for 27 years, made his way back with his first-ever defeat as the school's wrestling coach. The "streak" was seven years old when Cozart replaced Brandon High wrestling coach Jim Graves. Cozart had hoped to set the nation's record for high school wrestling, and he did. Then he hoped to set the record for any high school sport; he did that, too, in 1997. Finally, on Jan. 5, 2008, the streak ended -- some 459 consecutive victories later. How Cozart reacted, his first day back at school, says a lot about the man, the town and the streak. Read on by clicking each individual photo.

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