Rising freshmen Peyton Cox makes moves to achieve wrestling dreams
By FRED KRONER
Peyton Cox had a goal to establish a standard of excellence within the Mahomet-Seymour Junior High wrestling program that could never be topped but – perhaps – one day could be matched.
Wrestling for the school which has produced the most Illinois Elementary School Association individual state champions, Cox sought to become the first athlete from M-S with the maximum three state titles in the sport.
“That was his one and only junior high goal,” said Peyton’s father, Todd Cox, himself a former IESA state champion for the Bulldogs.
Peyton Cox got off to a great start. As a sixth-grader in 2018-19, he compiled a 40-1 record and was the IESA state titlist at 95 pounds.
Moving up to 112 pounds as a seventh-grader, he was well on his way to a repeat crown.
After winning the sectional tournament, he was 36-0 for the season.
“I was so excited,” Peyton Cox said. “It was heartbreaking what happened.”
On the day that all state qualifiers were to weigh in, their schools got a call telling them to stay home. The state finals for the 2019-20 school year were being canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, which was just beginning to sweep through the country.
“It was horrible,” Peyton Cox said. “My dad came in my room to wake me up and tell me. I broke down crying.”
The adage about waiting until next year was little consolation. The dream, the chance to officially be the state’s best for three consecutive years, was shattered and could never be recovered.
Next year – Cox’s eighth-grade year – did arrive.
That was the recently completed 2020-21 school year. The junior high wrestling season wasn’t canceled, but the IESA announced in advance that schools would be restricted to a limited number of dual meets in their region.
The entire postseason series was also canceled.
Peyton Cox finished his junior high wrestling career with 71 consecutive wins and a cumulative two-year record of 76-1.
He could have competed for M-S as an eighth-grader to finish his junior high career, but instead opted to do what he has done for years in the off-season.
With his father adding miles to the family’s 2014 Honda Accord, he went to an assortment of national events. Some were specifically for junior high students. Some were age-group events, and he competed in either 14-and-under or 15-and-under divisions.
Some were open events and Cox found himself matched up with high school state placers and champions.
“There were a lot more opportunities to wrestle around the country (than with the limited junior high schedule),” Peyton Cox said.
He took to the mat in Pennsylvania a half-dozen times. There were other competitions where he participated in Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Wisconsin and – occasionally – in Illinois.
In the past year, Cox has wrestled 64 times. He won 59 of those bouts.
He won Illinois’ state AAU tournament, which ended on April 11. Cox pinned all five of his opponents.
He was a member of a New Jersey-based national middle school all-star team – called Revival – which won the National Middle School Duals in Virginia Beach on May 31, 2021.
Cox won six of his seven matches. His loss was a 1-0 decision.
He was also on the winning team – representing Toss ‘Em Up Wrestling Academy – at the Grand River Rumble, in Wisconsin Dells, which ended on July 11, 2021.
Competing at 130 pounds, Cox won his weight class in the 14-and-under division. The following day, his team was entered in the 15-and-under division and took first place.
Despite his IESA junior high disappointments, Peyton Cox is certain of one thing.
“If I wrestled my sixth-grade self now, I’d crush my sixth-grade self,” he said, “but I want to keep improving.”
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When Peyton Cox’s seventh-grade season ended a week prematurely in 2020, many of his competitive options were taken away.
He couldn’t go to the school for practice. Training facilities weren’t open either.
He – and his family – had to improvise.
“We bought a few mats and made an underground wrestling room in the garage (at the Mahomet home of his grandparents, Mike and Linda Cox),” Peyton Cox said. “There was nowhere else to practice.
“Everything felt off.”
The three 10-by-10 mats that Todd Cox purchased were laid in the garage, along with some accompanying wall mats.
“They were vacationing in Florida,” Todd Cox said. “I was looking after the house and thought that the big, empty garage looked like the perfect training room.
“We trained out there for a few months.”
Sometimes, Peyton Cox was working out solo. Sometimes his dad – a former University of Missouri wrestler – joined in.
“Sometimes there were a few kids from the area who wanted to keep wrestling, and we got them in there,” Peyton Cox said. “I got as much training and practice as I normally would have.”
Peyton Cox didn’t always have his way with the opponents who were in the makeshift wrestling room.
“I’ve only taken my dad down one time (ever),” he said, “but he has 60 pounds on me and is in pretty good shape.
“He always gets the best of me, but he pushes me.”
Todd Cox eventually told his parents what he had done with their garage – before they arrived back from Florida – and didn’t receive any backlash.
“When we moved the mats out (to another facility), I think he was glad to have the garage back, but I think he was sad, too, that all of the wrestling activity was out of there,” Todd Cox said.
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Like his father, who earned 10 varsity letters at M-S (four each in wrestling and soccer and two in baseball), Peyton Cox was a multi-sport athlete in the past.
He started into wrestling as a 5-year-old, after finishing pre-school. He also played flag football, travel soccer and was a three-year member of the M-S Junior High baseball team.
Besides pitching, Cox also played shortstop and center field.
Wrestling wasn’t always his go-to activity.
“Until sixth grade, baseball was my No. 1 favorite sport and what I was best at,” Peyton Cox said.
Part of the reason is the early attitude he maintained about wrestling.
“I would go to practice because I had to,” he said. “It was not something I got to do.
“I learned to love wrestling more. Now, it’s where I get free again. It’s like a safe zone.”
With that mindset, Cox added, “Now, I’ve excelled more.”
Ironically, wrestling wasn’t the only sport where Cox had COVID-interferring seasons during his junior high years.
In the fall of 2021, M-S won a baseball sectional championship, which in other years would have qualified them for the state tournament. However, the IESA halted the postseason series after the 2021 sectional.
Whether Cox will be a two-sport athlete at Washington hasn’t been determined.
“I’m not 100 percent decided,” he said, “but more than likely, I will just wrestle full-time now.”
While pursuing his wrestling goals, Peyton Cox still has a ways to go to claim bragging rights in his own family.
Todd Cox was a three-time high school wrestling state-qualifier, a two-time state-medalist as an underclassman, and was ranked second in his weight class as a senior.
His disappointment at not earning a state medal in his final year was soothed somewhat by winning the National High School Coaches Postseason Tournament a week later at 135 pounds and receiving the meet’s Outstanding Wrestler Award.
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Todd Cox remembers encouraging his son to “refocus the goals,” soon after the IESA state tournament was canceled in 2020.
In heeding the advice, Peyton Cox set the bar extremely high.
“My goal is to wrestle at a Division I college – Missouri and Iowa are the two I want to go to the most – and to compete at the Olympic level and try to win a gold medal in freestyle,” Peyton Cox said.
He’s not waiting for the future to start on the journey.
For more than three months, he has been commuting to train at least twice a week in Washington (Illinois).
“Washington is a lot like Mahomet was in the ‘80s and ‘90s (when the Bulldogs were winning five team state titles in a seven-year period),” Todd Cox said. “They are the freestyle and Greco mecca of the Midwest.
“He wants to wrestle for a top-five program in college and wrestle in the Olympics. Some of the best training partners and coaches for the international styles are in Washington.”
Cox has been working out regularly with Kannon Webster, who was recently the 120-pound freestyle weight-class winner in the Cadet Junior National Championships at Fargo, N.D., which ended July 23.
Webster, a rising junior, has already verbally committed to the University of Illinois.
“This gives me the best opportunity for what I want to do after high school,” Peyton Cox said.
One evening, as father and son were making the 65-minute trip back from Washington High School to the family home in Mahomet, Todd Cox made an off-hand comment that he intended as a joke.
“I said, ‘It would be cool to wrestle for Washington (High School), wouldn’t it,” Todd Cox related.
“He said, “Yeah. Can I?”
That led to a weeks-long discussion about the possibilities surrounding the idea and what had to happen to make it a reality.
“I honestly thought it was a good idea,” Peyton Cox said. “I brought it up to my mom (Ashley Ireland Cox) and she wanted to move with me.”
With the living arrangements settled, the other details for the transfer were worked out. When school starts in August, Peyton Cox will be a freshman at Washington High School.
“It will be stressful, but it’s what I want to do,” Peyton Cox said. “Once I get settled in, life will go back to the way it was.”
He said the final decision wasn’t made in haste.
“There were a lot of pros and cons to moving or staying,” Peyton Cox said. “I will miss family and friends.
“It was a hard decision. I made it seem easier. Going to Washington will help me improve more.”
There will also be a time of transition for Todd Cox and his wife, Amber, and his daughter Presley and step-daughter Jaycee, both of whom are entering seventh grade.
“There were some reservations,” Todd Cox said. “It’s a big adjustment for all of the family members around him.
“He’s defining his goals and looking to the future.”
Since 2015, Washington has been the state’s most dominant Class 2A wrestling program, winning four consecutive team dual-meet state championships and placing no lower than second in the series in each of the last six years the IHSA has sponsored a postseason tournament.
Peyton Cox, whose walk-around weight this summer is 135 pounds, realizes he may not land a varsity spot as a high school freshman at the weight class he would prefer.
“My goal is 132,” he said, “but wherever he (Webster) wants, he’ll wrestle. It depends how the lineup plays out. I could be at 138.”
Reflecting on his junior high career at M-S is bittersweet for Peyton Cox.
“I still have upsetting feelings about not being able to finish out my whole junior high career,” he said. “Me and my friends talk that COVID dethroned me my seventh-grade year.
“I’m satisfied with what I did in the short amount of time I had. I did the most I could have done.”
Virtually all of Cox’s future goals are ones that he can control with his own effort and performance.
There is one fervent wish, however, that must be left to fate.
“I wish all of my (M-S) junior high teammates luck in high school,” Peyton Cox said, “and I hope I never have to wrestle someone from Mahomet.
“That would be weird. My biggest fear is first round at state, if I beat them, I’d feel horrible (for them), but at the same time, I’d feel good that I made it to the second round.”
