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My wife, Ashley, and I have been married for 9 years. We have two daughters Gianna and Adrianna. We have two dogs named Maui and Moana. We adopted them both from different rescue organizations. They love to swim, hike and play! I like to spend my free time with my family. Some of my favorite things to do is take my family places to have fun. Aquarium of Toronto, Aquarium of Niagara, Buffalo Museum of Science, Buffalo Zoo, and Niagara Falls State Park are some of the places we like to go to. Another thing I love to do is take Maui and Moana running, hiking, and swimming.
Outside of school I participate in a sport called Brazilian Jujitsu. I train at an academy called Buffalo United Martial Arts. Jiujitsu is a sport that involves grappling with submissions. I love training and competing in jiujitsu because there is strategy to it; similar to chess. You have to think one or to moves ahead of your opponent to win. I have lots of fun and compete in tournaments all around the country. I was recently promoted to brown belt. I am one belt ranking below a black belt. There is less than 50 brown belts in all of Western New York. The accomplishment I am most proud of is winning a Masters 2 Blue Belt World Championship. I entered a bracket with 44 other competitors in my age, weight and belt division. I won 5 matches in a row to win the tournament. I am the first person from my academy and second ever from Western New York to win a Masters Championship. I worked incredibly hard and I am very proud of this accomplishment.
For nine years, I was the Head Wrestling Coach for the wrestling team at Niagara Falls High School. The wrestling program at the High School has had a lot of success since LaSalle and Niagara Falls have combined. My goal was to continue that tradition of success. In 2014 and 2020 we won the Class AA tournament and finished the season AA Section Champs. In 2020 we went undefeated and won the Niagara Frontier League. In 2018 and 2020, Willie McDougald won the New York State Championship Tournament. He is the first ever 2x State Champ from Niagara Falls. I believe wrestling is the best sport you can participate in when you're in high school. I also wrestled in college at a Division III school, Wilkes University. I made All-Conferece my senior year and was a team captain my final two years. Wrestling has been a big part of my life. I am very happy to have participated in it as an athlete and a coach.
