Lazor leaves a legacy of excellence with Lions

   Greg Lazor's tenure as Chestnut Ridge's wrestling coach will be remembered for many things — from him tearing a towel to shreds at times during matches, to leading pre and post-match huddles that ended in a unison chant with the team's ultimate goal of a state championship, to his always colorful and witty comments to myself and other media members.
   His 11-year run will also be remembered for winning, a lot of it on the statewide level which hadn't been done by any other area program.
   Lazor recently decided now is the time to step away, resigning from the position in what he told me was a difficult decision but the right one. I had a story on this for today's edition of the Bedford Gazette.
   He and his wife Sandra have three children age 13 or younger, who are all involved in their own sports. Lazor was simply missing too much time with them to continue giving as much to wrestling.
   I wasn't surprised that Greg stepped down. I had heard rumblings of it since late last summer, along with the fact he was probably going to take the head softball position, and I figured this could be his final wrestling go-around.
   It was quite the way to go out, too. The Lions again dominated the regular season, won their seventh consecutive District 5 Duals championship, then finished third at the Class AA state duals for their fourth team medal in Hershey in their seven appearances.
   Lazor won over 200 matches at Chestnut Ridge, led the Lions to those seven district duals crowns, eight straight District 5 Tournament team titles and two Southwest Regional team championships, and coached 11 different state medalists. Those four medals (4th in 2013, 2nd in 2015, 3rd in 2018 and 2019) from the state team event put Chestnut Ridge second to only Reynolds (7 medals) in the last seven years of the Class AA Duals.
   Never one to take all, or any of the credit, Lazor will always say he couldn't have done what he did without the foundation of Chestnut Ridge wrestling, which included year-in and year-out success at the elementary and junior high levels. Two of the products of that — Justin McCoy and Jared McGill — became the two winningest wrestlers in Bedford County history and each won a state championship with Lazor in the corner. McCoy, now at the University of Virginia, won 167 bouts in his career, while McGill, who will be heading to the University of Pittsburgh, just wrapped up a 161-win total. I find it fitting that McGill's 170-pound state final was Lazor's last coaching bout with the Lions.
   In hindsight, maybe none of us should be surprised what Lazor's final numbers at Chestnut Ridge say. Before moving back to his native Bedford County, he built a successful program from the ground up at West Stokes High School in North Carolina.
   At Chestnut Ridge, he came to what was already a strong local program and built on what Jim Clark had done in his 30-plus years that featured 342 wins and spots in both the Bedford County Sports Hall of Fame and the Pennsylvania Wrestling Coaches Hall of Fame.
   As for the towel ripping, it was what Lazor usually described as "nervous energy." On numerous occasions, there would be mere pieces of it remaining by the end of the match.
   His Lion teams coined the phrase "One, two, three, state champs!" when breaking a huddle. They never quite got there, but it became a vocal, motivational goal to strive for.
   His commentary to me and others after matches was positive and often quite humorous. Even for the Gazette story I wrote for today, he said on the question of being as successful as the Lions were: "I was dumb enough to think we could do it, I just needed some boys naive enough to believe in me."
   Last summer, I went to the Snake Spring fields between Bedford and Everett on a midweek night to snap a couple of youth ball photos for the Gazette. I didn't know beforehand, but Lazor's daughter Grace was on one of the teams that was there. Between innings, I saw Greg coming through the dugout and jokingly said "Hey, I came here to see if you were a better softball coach than a wrestling coach."
   His response, in his usual self-depricating style: "Neither."
   Now in charge of the varsity softball program, we may find the answer.
   But this I know — Lazor is already a winner, and has been for a long time.