When he began recounting the pieces that went into Cleveland’s amazing state wrestling championship run, coach Eric Phillips started with Heath Eslinger.
“He brought me here. It was part of his vision five years with me at the middle school,” Phillips said. “Heath had the program in place.”
When Heath left Cleveland two years ago to become the head coach at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga he recommended Phillips as his successor, and he left him a good support group that included former Blue Raiders coaches Duane Shriver and Al Miller, ex-Blue Raider wrestler Thomas Queen and Josh Boskin.
“Al and Coach Shriver ran this program and Miller has more wrestling knowledge in his pinky finger than all of us combined,” Phillips said.
It was first Eslinger and then Phillips that based the Blue Raiders’ program on a strong commitment to self, to school and to team but it was a philosophy that Shriver and Miller embraced years ago.