If Wilmette Junior High School was known for one thing, it had always been its chess team. The school’s program has won multiple state titles and was the only state-title winning program in the school’s history.

That changed during the weekend of March 9-10, 2018 at Northern Illinois University during the Boys State Wrestling Meet.

That’s because eighth-grader Jack Cummings won the 145-pound state title, becoming the first non-chess, state-title winner in school history. In the process, he also became the first wrestler to place at the state meet in the wrestling program’s history. Cummings defeated Eric Gibbs, of Joliet Hufford, 4-2 in sudden victory.

“Going into the match, I was pretty confident, because the kid I was wrestling, I felt confident that I could beat him,” Cummings said. “But during the match, it was a tougher match than I expected, and it went into overtime. But when I got the takedown and won the match, I was just super excited, and I didn’t know what to do.”

Cummings has been wrestling for the past seven years, or about half as long as the wrestling program at Wilmette Junior High has existed (12 years). He’s qualified for the state tournament for the past four years, twice in Kentucky and the last two in Illinois. Prior to this year though, the highest place he had gotten was third at the Illinois Kids Wrestling Federation meet last season.

“Last year, I was obviously excited. It was the highest placing I’ve ever gotten, and it was super awesome,” he said. “But this year, it just … actually won a state title, I’ve been wanted to do it for like five years. And it was a dream come true.”

Wilmette Junior High coach Dan Levy has been the coach at the school for the past eight seasons and has seen the program grow exponentially. When he started, the team practiced in the annex next to the cafeteria on a 27-foot mat that Levy had to put in a T-formation and had only nine members on the roster. This season the squad had almost 30 members and was able to enter 22 wrestlers at the regional tournament they hosted at New Trier.

The team no longer practices in the annex, they’ve moved over to Gym A at Highcrest and when they get the opportunity, get to use Gym C where they can get two full mats.

“One of the reasons why we were successful this year was because of Jack,” Levy said. “He made everybody better this year. Normally, when you have a really good kid, they make the person next to him, a weight next to him better. He did that, but he also made everybody better because there is a leader of a room, he was the leader of our room, really the last two years. When it’s time to work, he would get to work and do the work and when the other kids see that, they respond to it and they know the level of expectation.

“Forever, it’s changed in our room. Our level of expectation now is to be a state champion because the program has one and they see it. Before we would just talk about it and now we have that actual kid that did the work and is a state champion.”

This season for Wilmette Junior High, Cummings wrestled 32 matches, winning 31 of them. But he made sure to point out that he avenged that loss at the state tournament. That one loss came in his first tournament, where he lost a match 5-4. His coach also doesn’t remember any opponent earning points against Cummings via takedown.

While Cummings doesn’t really know how to explain his wrestling style, his coach does.

“His technique is what I would call very clean. He rarely makes a mistake and when he does, he does all things well within his repertoire but his style is, he has strength and very good technique,” the coach added. “His style is excellent. He can do a lot of things but when you get to those final matches of the tournament you have to be very good at a couple of things, and he was good at that. He can ride on the top-bottom positions, he can ride very well, he can turn people, off the bottom he can get out, and on his feet he does a good job of creating angles and taking people down.”

With the end of the school season upon us, Cummings now transitions to club wrestling with Poeta, as well as the North Shore Edge Wrestling Club, where one of his coaches is his future high school coach, New Trier varsity coach Marc Tadleman. 

“I want to wrestle at New Trier; hopefully get a varsity spot next year under coach Tadelman,” Cummings said. “I would like to follow in the footsteps of guys like Patrick Ryan and Jack Tangen who placed at the state tournament this year. Before I graduate, I’d like to place as well. 

“I think having Coach Tadelman as my club coach will be helpful, because he already knows what moves I like to do, how to help me during matches, and I think it’ll be beneficial. It’ll motivate me more.”