PINDOX PROFILE/Wrestlers Who Fish: Brady Brott; Clarion-Goldfield-Dows/Team Valley/Iowa Lakes Community College

by Joshua Swafford on October 11, 2021

PINDOX PROFILE/Wrestlers Who Fish: Brady Brott; Clarion-Goldfield-Dows/Team Valley/Iowa Lakes Community College

Brady Brott… The short story on him in terms of his wrestling career is that he was a guy who was below average at times at the youth level, but by the time he his Junior year in HS, he was one of the best at his weight. He placed 4th at state as a Junior and 2nd at state as a Senior, losing his finals match by only 1 point…

So before I get too far into this, gotta stay true to the series this falls in, which is “Wrestlers Who Fish!” With that said, check out some of the nice Northern Park he has reeled in over the years!!!

Back to the mat. Brady made steady, consistent gains with his coaches at Team Valley and Clarion-Goldfield-Dows. I didn’t see much of Brott until State his Senior year and admittedly never saw him wrestle except for maybe once… so I got comments from Brady’s primary wrestling coach throughout his career, Dr. Dan Gabrielson as well as one of his teammates, Justin Portillo.

COACH DR. DAN GABRIELSON: He struggled for a bit as a little kid wrestler, but was the hardest worker you will ever see. The kid got so strong, so ornery, never missed a club practice and was so close to winning the state title as a Senior. He lost a 2 to 1 match in the finals.

JUSTIN PORTILLO: Brady was notorious for giving up the first takedown, then hitting some whacky reversal for a pin. I remember joking that he gave up the first takedown he’d pin him every time! We were on a really, really good team our senior year, 2016. I’m pretty sure he beat me for pins on the team my senior year, not happy about that, lol. We had just moved up to 2A, and the team was looking to prove a lot. Brott ran a gauntlet to make the finals that year and was super close to being a state champion. It would have been one year after fellow Clarion teammate Joel Haberman came out of nowhere to win a state title his senior year. In the dual state finals against Assumption, we were down by about 5 points and our very last wrestler up was Brady Brott. As intense as it was, a lot of us were hopeful. If there was anyone on our team who could get a pin when we needed it, Brott was the guy. He put the team on his back and ended up losing the match, simply because he was going for a pin the entire time. A lot of our seniors went out as heroes (despite losing) in our final dual together, where unsung heroes Lucas Lienemann and Calen Rosenbaum both got pins, sandwiched between me and my bro getting dominant wins to close out our dual careers for the Cowboys. We didn’t get the title, but we darn-near became 3x state dual team champions after bumping up a division. Brott was a huge cog in that machine.. but Brady was also known for losing funny, inconsistent matches during the season. He’d hang with a state placer, but then drop one to a guy who had a losing record. Because of that, we really didn’t know what we would get at the state tournament, but he wrestled lights out and became a state finalist.