JMU's Winfrey takes a big one for the team

By Jason Bryant
jbryant@intermatwrestle.com

James Madison University athletics has seen better days. With the school just over two years removed from a Division I-AA football national championship, there’s been a buzz at the Harrisonburg, Va., school about not just the football team, but the entire cohesive family that is JMU athletics.

That was until administrators at JMU elected to heinously cut 10 sports from its roster of varsity programs including wrestling.

Coach Josh Hutchens and his young Dukes wrestling team have battled. They’ve battled without scholarships, they’ve battled just to scrape together a schedule that’s challenging, but also provides a chance at success.

One of those battles has been a self-inflicted one by JMU senior heavyweight Zack Winfrey.

Electing to sacrifice his last chance at making an NCAA tournament, Winfrey moved up from his fitting 174-pound weight class and is now finding himself giving up nearly 70-80 pounds each time he steps on the mat.

He didn’t stock up on hoagies and beer in the offseason to go heavyweight, Winfrey told his coach that he’d do anything he could this season to help a team which appeared to be wrestling its last season.

Anything was good enough, but moving up three weights was borderline crazy. On Friday morning it paid off as Winfrey picked up a 4-2 victory over Jabril Patterson which clinched JMU’s 21-14 upset over SUNY-Brockport in the American Division at the Virginia Duals.

Maybe it was the atmosphere that gave Winfrey and the Dukes, who are loaded with Virginia wrestlers, the extra push.

“It’s the Virginia Duals man, great just to be out here again,” said Winfrey, still winded.

“I always wrestled my best here in the past,” said Winfrey. “I came here freshman year and I didn’t get a match, it feels good.”

Winfrey, a two-time state placewinner for Denbigh High School in Newport News, just 10 miles from the Hampton Coliseum, wrestled 160 pounds his last two seasons in high school and had been bouncing between 174 and 197 during his tenure at JMU.

The victory has been one of few for Winfrey at his new weight, but it was as big as his Brockport opponent. Well, few is a bit low. He’s won five matches this season.

“He’s a senior and came back and said he just wanted to be a positive influence,” said Hutchens. “He’s doing the best he can out there.”

While leading by example might be an overused expression, and in this situation, Winfrey’s not winning by example, but it takes some intestinal fortitude in an individual sport like wrestling to give up your last shot.

“The guys on the sidelines are all rooting for him hard,” said Hutchens. “You should see them, well especially when he wins, but they go nuts when he shoots.”

“He gets under those guys that might outweigh him by 100 pounds,” said Hutches.

Winfrey hopes that not only his sacrifice, but the work of the coalition to save the cut sports at James Madison can be enough to save not only the wrestling program, but the other nine sports.

“We’re using last year’s performance as a defense to show the progress we’ve made from losing scholarships to build back up,” said Winfrey. “We’re trying to do all we can.”

But when Winfrey steps on the mat on Saturday against Cecil Lee of the Apprentice School, he’ll find himself at another sizeable disadvantage.

And he actually likes it.

“I know I’m the underdog every time I step on the mat,” said Winfrey.

InterMat Lead Writer
Jason Bryant