Wrestling
Favorite athlete: Hunter Renfrow
Favorite team: Philadelphia Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: Getting my 100th win.
Most embarrassing thing that has happened to me while competing in sports: Freshman year, getting pinned in a double arm bar.
Music on playlist: “When You Were Young”
Future plans: Go to Gettysburg College and wrestle there.
Words to live by: “Enjoy the journey.”
One goal before turning 30: Make a million dollars.
One thing people don’t know about me: I’m a scratch golfer.
By GORDON GLANTZ
The nuts and bolts of the wrestling career of Abington’s Ryan Solomon are as follows:
-108 wins (second all-time in school history)
-52 pins
-29 technical falls
-93 bonus point wins
-Two Suburban One League Liberty titles
-Two District One Section North runner-up finishes
-Two Regional place finishes
-One PIAA State AAA qualifier
But there was way more to the Gettysburg College-bound senior’s career than those facts and figures.
They don’t add up to the full story.
It was the standard that he set for himself and for others that head coach David Osei, who happens to be the school’s all-time win leader with 132, won’t soon forget.
“Ryan is a very hardworking and self-motivated athlete and student,” said Osei, a 2009 Abington graduate. “He’s a wrestler I never had to push because he wanted to get better, no matter what.
“He was willing to go the extra mile – sometimes having two-three practices on the same day and always looking to improve.”
This all-in approach had a positive effect on the whole team.
“As a teammate and captain, you couldn’t ask for a better example,” Osei added. “All the younger wrestlers had to do was observe his work ethic, and they would know what it took to be great.”
The son of Don Solomon and Patty Bermel - and the second in line of a brood of five - is now enjoying the view of his Abington career in the rearview mirror.
“I definitely like to be a guy that others can look up to, and not just for my results,” he said. “It was about my day-to-day effort with the hard work that I put in and the focus and dedication and the consistency.
“A lot of times, people get caught up in the results. I don’t look back on my career and just see the 100 wins or the regional placing or the pins or the state qualification.
“That’s not what I did it for. I did because I had fun, and because I like to wrestle – a lot.”
The Century Mark
While his 100th win was a bit anti-climactic, as it came by way of forfeit, Solomon was still proud of the accomplishment.
“It was a great milestone to get,” said Solomon, who wrestled at 172 pounds his last two years after starting off at 152 as a freshman and then at 160 as a
sophomore. “It always feels good to be able to reach them. There is all the hard work that you put in every day – the weight room, the dieting and the extra practices. Whenever you reach those milestones, it feels good to be able to look back and see all that hard work paying off.”
Solomon was a captain for two years, and took that role seriously.
“I never wanted to take advantage of being a leader and boss people around or anything like that,” he explained. “I just tried to set the example. I wasn’t so much a loud leader who had to talk a lot and yell at people and push people around.
“I just tried to set the right example and to set the overall blueprint for them.”
And Solomon’s message to the teammates he is leaving behind is simple and yet complex.
“I know a couple of the guys look up to me,” he said. “That feels good, but I just want them to make their own path in the sport.
“Wrestling is so individual that you can do what you want with it. I think that wrestling is super fun and, if anything, I wouldn’t tell anyone to go for 100 wins or go do this or that. I’d just tell them to go to practice, have fun, work hard and make the most of it. Whatever you want from it, go and get it.”
Constant Work
Solomon wanted to thank his parents, teammates, Abington coaches and friends for their support.
He especially thanked the club coaches he worked with along the way.
“I wrestled for a couple of clubs in the summer,” said Solomon. “There was Apache (with coach Brian Silimperi) and Stellar, with coach Chance Marsteller. He’s a great clinician and probably the best coach that I ever had in wrestling. He runs a great club up at Alvernia University. I credit a lot of my success to that club and being in that room.”
Solomon, who gave a special shoutout to friend Matty Giannattasio, knows his parents paved the way for him to succeed.
“They have always been my biggest supporters,” he said. “I can’t even stress how much my mom has done for me. She is the one who has driven me to all these practices. With my dad, he has been my best friend and my mentor. He is the one who has always been by my side as my greatest critic and my greatest supporter.”
Hot Off the Presses
Solomon will continue his journey as a student-athlete at Gettysburg College, which he just recently chose over the likes of Ithaca and Alvernia.
“I ultimately decided on Gettysburg,” said Solomon. “I just like the coaches and the guys, and I think it’s just a place where I can go and succeed both academically and with wrestling.”
For an aspiring millionaire, becoming a Bullet seemed liked an ideal fit.
“It has a great alumni network,” he said. “It’s very prestigious, and it’s been there a long time. Going into business, it’s all about those internships and connections.”
Solomon put himself in position to be on Gettysburg’s radar with stellar work in the classroom, posting a GPA well over 4 and making the distinguished honor roll.
“I’m taking four AP classes right now,” he said. “My parents always stressed the importance of a good education and setting yourself up for a good future, so I have always been pretty focused on that.
“Everyone likes to say student-athlete, and ‘student’ comes first, so education has always been very important for me.”
Making Memories
Enjoy the journey.
Solomon lives by the saying, and he can now look back fondly on his high school career.
“Absolutely,” he said. “I put in all this work, and day to day it can get a little bit hard. Maybe I’ll take a tough loss, or there is a setback, but there are always setbacks and bumps in the road. You get those setbacks and think, ‘What am I doing this for?’ That’s when you can take a step back and think about how far I’ve come and about why I started wrestling in the first place.”
Even though he tried just about every other sport there is to try, wrestling was always wired in his DNA.
Why? Dad was a college wrestler at Ithaca and a youth coach.
“Growing up, I did basketball, soccer, baseball, wrestling, football -- but, as I got older, I started to weed it out a little bit,” said Solomon. “I even did wrestling and basketball together in same season, but then I cut out basketball. It was then between wrestling and football, and I pretty much decided to stick with wrestling and focus on that.
“I was the best at wrestling out of all the sports I did, and it was also my favorite. I started out when I was 5 years old and I was always in the room with my dad when he was coaching. As long as I can remember, I have always been around the mat.”
Through good times and bad and all spots in between.
“I love the sport,” said Solomon. “I love how hard you have to work. I love the individuality of it. It sometimes means taking a step back and living in the day to day and enjoying practice and coming into practice with a positive attitude. You just have to be in the moment and enjoy it.”
The End Game
With his college choice made and the high school portion of his wrestling career over, Solomon is now facing a new foe: Senioritis.
“I’m getting a little bit tired of high school sometimes, but I still think it’s great,” said Solomon, whose competitive spirit has turned him into a scratch golfer in just a few years. “I’m trying to enjoy my last couple of months with my friends, and just being around all the people that I have been with for the last four years.
“And, of course, I still have to stay focused in the school setting. That means pushing through the senioritis and getting my assignments done.”
Although it is the nature of scholastic sports for athletes to move on, Solomon clearly left a lasting imprint on the Abington program.
“We’ll definitely feel his loss,” said Osei. “But, as a public school, we develop the athletes that we have.
“It wouldn’t be fair to ask anyone to fill his shoes. He will always be one of the best in school history.”
