Perry has winning touch

Jackson Perry won four straight state titles with Bishop Gorman’s football team.

This weekend in Winnemucca, the 285-pound Dartmouth signee hopes to add a wrestling title to his dossier.

After dominating the Sunset Region tournament last week, winning all four of his matches by pin, Perry figures to be one of the favorites to win the Division I state championship in the heavyweight division.

“My mindset for (state) is I want to beat everyone,” said Perry, who scored first-round pins in three of his regional victories. “I want to have that state championship under my belt. I want to look across the mat at my coaches and say ‘We did it.’ I want to be the first heavyweight champion for this Bishop Gorman coaching staff.”

Perry not only would be the first heavyweight champ for the current staff, which has been in place for three seasons. Of the 17 Gaels who have won state titles in wrestling, none has been a heavyweight.

Gorman assistant coach Todd Prace says he has a good feeling about Perry’s chances this weekend, and not just because of his talent on the mat but because of the work ethic and time he’s put into this season, even after a rigorous campaign playing for the No. 1 football team in the nation.

“Jackson Perry has to be one of the most level-headed athletes we have on the squad,” Prace said. “His dedication and willingness to sacrifice for the team makes him bar none one of the best athletes I’ve ever coached. He brings an attitude with him from the football field that really make the other athletes in the wrestling room look up to him. They see him as the leader of the team.

“And as a coach, we’ve learned a lot from Jackson Perry. There are not a lot of athletes like him, who come early, stay late and push the other kids past the point of exertion. That makes us want to be better coaches. He also brings a fun attitude to the room, as he’ll always have time to crack a quick joke, make us all smile before we get back to the grind.”

Perry credited his father, Troi, with his dedication to being the best and never giving up. But when it comes to winning, he said he gets the drive from his mother, Love.

“I remember my dad, as my first football coach, had us running hills at Desert Breeze Park. I was dying, my lungs were about to burst, and he told me to get in the car. He said, ‘You’re done.’ I got in the car and sat there for about five minutes thinking, ‘What am I doing, why would I give up now.’ I’ve never wanted to give up in my life, ever again.

“But winning, I think I get it from my mom more than I do my dad. My mom never wanted to lose, and she works hard at everything she does. Really, together, my parents have been a winning combination for me my entire life.”

Perry started on the mat in youth wrestling, and said he has remembered practically every match he’s lost, as far back as a match “to a kid named Brandon when I was 8 years old,” and because of losses at an early age, he has taken every sport he’s participated in seriously.

“I hate losing,” he said. “There are so many people that I’ve lost to — I haven’t forgotten them. Honestly, I think wrestling has helped me with football more than football has helped me with wrestling. Wrestling is a grueling sport. You don’t get to take time off in between plays. Wrestling is six minutes straight. In football, a play lasts between six and 12 seconds. Wrestling has definitely helped me with my conditioning.”

Perry originally committed to play football for Vanderbilt, but said he didn’t feel at home there. While he says the engineering program was nice, and the community was somewhat different from Las Vegas, even Nashville, Tenn., made him feel as if he were moving from one big city to another. Enter Dartmouth, which is located in Hanover, N.H., where he liked the small, tight-knit, family-like town.

And while he said he could see himself playing more than one sport at Dartmouth, he wants to focus on and sharpen his craft on the football field.

First things first, though, as his quest to become a seven-time state champ in three sports begins this weekend in Winnemucca. He’ll looking to add titles in the discus and shot put in the spring.

“The fact that Jackson Perry could be a seven-time state champ doesn’t surprise me,” Prace said. “In fact, it’s something we’re looking forward to.”