Durant left legacy of excellence at JMHS
BY TIM MORRIS
Staff Writer

SCOTT PILLING staff Bill Durant, father of Lou Durant, greets family and friends who came to pay their respects during a funeral service honoring his son.

Bernie Reider's first impression of Lou Durant was hardly auspicious.

"He was in the first group from the middle school," the former Jackson Memorial High School wrestling coach recalled this week. "We wanted to keep them together as a group. I issued him a freshman uniform. It says something about my ability to judge talent."

Durant, who would go on to become one of the Shore Conference's greatest wrestling champions, died last week at the age of 47, leaving behind one of the great careers in JMHS history. Jackson had state champions before Durant and state champions after him, but none has been as synonymous with excellence as Durant.

"When I run into guys from the past, he's one of the two or three guys they remember," said Reider. "[Durant's death] is a tragedy at his young age. Everybody associated with the program is very saddened and devastated."

Lou Durant

Jackson's current head wrestling coach, Scott Goodale, himself a prolific winner for the Jaguars, said Durant set the standard for others to follow.

"He was always the benchmark, the guy that kids talked about," he said. "He was the guy everyone talked about when talking about the tradition of Jackson wrestling. For my class, he was the guy we were always chasing."

Durant, who wrestled for the Jaguars between the 1974-75 and 1977-78 seasons, was a four-year state place-winner, capturing the state championship in 1978, his senior year, at 123 pounds. He was a rare four-time New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association District champion and an ever rarer four-time NJSIAA region champion.

Durant's 118 career victories at the time he graduated - when 100 wins were almost unheard of - were a Shore Conference standard. It took until the high school wrestling season was extended with additional tournaments and state team championships and wrestlebacks in the individual state tournament for Durant's victory record to be broken two decades later.

Although he was issued a freshman uniform by then coach Reider, he was soon bound for bigger things.

Right before Jackson was to open the 1974-75 season with a quad meet in Toms River, the team's starting 101-pound grappler came down with a cold. Reider put the call out to Durant, who was still wearing his freshman uniform.

"He did well," said Reider. "We began to think that that's the way it's going to be. There'll be no change in the lineup. It was pretty obvious by the end of December and he'd won 10 matches that the kid was for real."

Durant would win the first of his four district and region titles that season, still wearing his freshman singlet (call it superstition). He would win region gold despite being the No. 4 seed.

"He walked through it," Reider said of his regional tournament triumph. "He was the better athlete, that carried the day."

Durant went on to place fourth at the 1975 state championship tournament and raised the level of expectations. He just "had to" win a state title.

"It put added pressure on him," noted Reider. "It became a harder job for him. It was something he felt that 'I have to do it.' "

Durant would place third in the state as a sophomore and a junior and then deliver on the promise to win a title in his senior year.

What separated Durant from the others were the same qualities that differentiate the greats from the near greats in all sports - talent and drive.

"He was truly, truly an outstanding natural athlete, just about as good as anyone I saw," Reider recalled. "He was quick, powerful, strong and fast. He was like a gyroscope. He always came out on the right side. He was a very intense guy, always worked hard and was a tremendous competitor. In practice he always followed through on everything."

Jackson wrestling shined during the Durant era, and that brought as much pride to him as his individual accomplishments.

"He was a good teammate," said Reider. "He worked hard with his teammates and he always put the team first."

Goodale recalled a quiet man who did not seek the limelight, but kept in touch with Jackson wrestling. Durant could be seen sitting in the top of the bleachers in a corner during the Jaguars' home matches.

"He always knew what we were doing and was proud of what we accomplished," Goodale said. "We take a great deal of pride in the history and tradition of Jackson wrestling and the legacy they [former wrestlers] built. Lou Durant is right up there."

Durant no doubt took pride in having seen Jackson rise to the No. 1 ranking in the state last year, a position the Jaguars hold firmly once again this season.