TodayBig Spring names new wrestling head coach
Kemal Pegram returns to lead the Bulldogs.
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Article RatingKemal Pegram got the itch again when his college coach was on the other end of the phone line over a year ago.
He’d been out of “the game” since 2001, when he was an assistant wrestling coach at Big Spring High School.
He was starting all over with Milton Hershey.
“It got the juices flowing again,” said Pegram. “It was everything I missed. I missed the atmosphere. Initially I had no intention to get back into coaching. Then one day I was on the phone with my old coach and he asked me what I thought about getting back into it. Someone I knew needed some help at Milton Hershey. Last year was good, but then I had some contacts at Big Spring and I found out their coach might not be coming back next year.”
Monday night, Pegram was named as the Big Spring head wrestling coach.
Pegram also showed interest in Lower Dauphin, which had an assistant coaching position open. Ultimately, the former Bulldog coach wanted to come back to his old stomping grounds.
And Pegram, who was an assistant from 1995-2001, was part of some successful Bulldogs teams: He helped coach the late Rick Gilliam, who took PIAA gold at 275 pounds in 1996; he helped guide a team that went undefeated in league matches in 2000, and followed with just one league loss in 2001.
“We were a young family,” Pegram said of his departure seven years ago. “I have a son who is autistic. The demands of coaching were a little too much. I had to step away.”
“Well, anytime you talk about Big Spring, you think wrestling. It’s important for me not to get in the way of that. They’ve had a lot of success. Hopefully I can take us to where we haven’t gone before.”
This past season, Pegram helped the Spartans go 13-9 overall and 6-2 in the Mid-Penn Capital Division.
And what Pegram inherits is a team that won the Colonial Division last season with an 8-0 record and went 10-3 overall. The season also featured the now Kent State bound Mallie Shuster, who won the PIAA gold at 152 pounds. That was under former coach Richard Hilleary. As of now, Pegram has not yet been able to meet with Big Spring wrestlers, but admits he’s kept his eye on their progress the past few years while he’s been away. He hopes to set something up soon.
The Big Spring 10th-grade learning support science teacher is confident the Bulldogs will have talent, despite the loss of Shuster.
“Again, with Big Spring, having guys that will produce is never the problem,” said Pegram. “It’s just a matter of getting those guys to wrestle to their potential at the same time. Being a special education teacher, I think I’ve been able hone in on how to reach kids.”
