To Eddie Sullivan’s way of thinking, the same qualities that make a great athlete also make for a great citizen, and the lessons offered by competing in sports are a pretty good metaphor for life.
Eddie, a member of the Charles Page High School Class of 1971, was a football player in elementary school, a time when Limestone and Garfield fielded teams on which he played.
But he was also paying attention to his cousins, and an uncle, who wrestled at the high school, something that piqued his interest, too. And so he began his grappler’s career in the 7th grade at Central Junior High.
For Eddie, wrestling offered the best of competitive sports. There’s the teamwork, with its camaraderie and sense of shared purpose. And then there’s the individuality of being in the squared circle by yourself, facing a single opponent, with nobody to blame but yourself if you fall short. You get what you put into it, Eddie says of wrestling. Kind of like life.
And for a kid who admits to needing a little direction in his life at that point, and who liked to fight, wrestling gave him purpose and pride. Perhaps no more so than in 1971, Eddie’s senior year at Charles Page, when he and his teammates won the state wrestling championship, the first ever for Sand Springs.
An unforgettable season for the Sandites, Eddie says, speaking of a team that together set goals to reach the pinnacle of their sport, and succeeded with drive and determination and the support of their coaches, and the townspeople who cheered them on.
Eddie went on to wrestle at Oklahoma State, then at the University of Central Oklahoma, where he was named an NAIA All-American in 1974.
Earning an education degree, Eddie taught mainly high school English in the classroom, and coached wrestling in gyms from Cleveland to Bristow, Cushing to Collinsville to Sapulpa. Along the way, he picked up more than 30 district and state championships, and coached 32 individual state champions, 22 All-State champions, 5 NCAA All-Americans and 3 high school All-Americans. Each of them learning from Eddie that success means developing a work ethic, putting in the time with persistence, the mental and physical toughness to learn from every loss as well as every win. If a coach has excellent athletes, it makes you as a coach look really good, Eddie says.
Good enough that in 2012, Eddie was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.
But he’s just as proud of a remedial English program he developed for the classroom, for the kids who’d fallen behind and needed a boost to their success. Eddie says the kids who’ve lost hope need love, too.
Back in high school, driving to Charles Page one rainy day, at Fifth and Grant he noticed Sue, a pretty girl he knew lived a block over from him, walking in the rain.
He pulled over, offered her a ride, she accepted. They’ve never been apart for 52 years now. Daughter Tracy and son Gable came along for the ride later.
After 30 years of teaching and coaching, Eddie says the joy of his work was developing young minds, helping kids achieve their goals, and the constant push to help them believe they could be champions, on the wrestling mat, and in life.