The Band Perry: Wrestling brothers reunite Sunday

The storyline should be simple.

Four teams, all ranked in the top five nationally, will wrestle in Stillwater on Sunday in an attempt to win the NWCA National Duals.

For most of the fans in attendance, what matters will be the final on the scoreboard.

But for the Perrys, Sunday's match is more complicated than that.

On one side will be Chris Perry, ranked third at 174 pounds and one of three Oklahoma State wrestlers undefeated on the season.

Mark Perry Jr., an assistant coach for Illinois, will be on the opposite side.

Standing nearby will be the brothers' uncle, John Smith, OSU's winningest wrestling coach.

Sunday is the first time Chris and Mark will compete against each other, albeit with one wrestling and the other coaching. The paths the brothers took in their wrestling careers varied, and the two have lived away from each other for 12 years.

Despite the circumstances, the bond between Mark and Chris has never been closer.

Family legacy passed down

Wrestling tradition runs rampant through the Perry household. Mark Perry Sr. was a two-time All-American at OSU from 1984-85 and an assistant coach at Nebraska and OSU.

Cathy, Mark Jr. and Chris' mother, is the older sister of coach John Smith. Her brothers Lee Roy, Pat and Mark also wrestled at OSU. Among the four brothers are seven national championships, 12 All-American honors and two gold medals.

Mark Jr. began wrestling in elementary school while the Perrys lived in Lincoln, Neb. His father joined John Smith's staff as an assistant when Smith became the coach at OSU in 1992, a move benefiting the brothers' training.

"We had an outstanding YMCA wrestling program here compared to Nebraska," Cathy said. "My boys walked into that with some really good coaches."

Mark Jr. was a decent wrestler as a youth, but Chris had immediate success when he started the sport in second grade.

In the fall of 1998, his first year wrestling, Chris went 33-0 and won regional championships.

"He didn't go through the same struggles when he was young," Mark Jr., said. "He was really good from a really young age."

The brothers would leave early in the morning on weekends and spend them at tournaments wrestling. Through this, the two grew closer.

"You just learned to love each other because you were with each other in those gyms 12 hours a day," Cathy said.

Move away from Stillwater

Cory Cooperman, now an assistant coach with Mark at Illinois, moved to Stillwater in the summer of 2000 to train for the Junior Nationals.

As the summer neared its conclusion, Cooperman told Mark Jr. he should go to New Jersey with him to attend Blair Academy, one of the premier prep programs for wrestling in the country.

"(Mark Jr.) begged us to let him go up there for at least a year," Cathy said. "It was kind of like a foreign exchange trip. We thought he would do it a year and we would bring him back home."

Instead, Mark Jr. stayed his final three years of high school at the academy.

Chris, who was in fourth grade at the time, no longer had Mark attending wrestling tournaments with him, much less seeing him on at home on daily basis.

"I didn't have that opportunity to have that big brother when I was growing up," Chris said. "He was (in New Jersey), but he was a long ways away."

"It was a real adjustment for Chris," Cathy said. "He missed him, and he was the big brother. But Chris then came into his own and got adjusted to it just like we all do when our kids go off to school."

Blair Academy won three national titles while Mark Jr. was there, and he was a two-time national prep champion.

Going his own way to success

With his success, Mark had the nation's top college coaches recruiting him.

His final decision came down to the two most successful wrestling programs of all-time: Oklahoma State and Iowa.

Although his uncle, John, was the coach at OSU, the Cowboys had wrestlers such as future NCAA champion Johny Hendricks at Mark Jr.'s weight class.

Mark Jr. decided to sign with Iowa, OSU's biggest rival.

"When he balanced it out, he had been away, Oklahoma State was loaded at his weight classes and he wanted to compete," Cathy said.

"I've always taken the opportunity if I felt it in my heart it was the best thing for me to do," Mark Jr. said. "I never second-guessed myself."

Mark Jr.'s family, with so much tradition in OSU wrestling, was surprised at first about his decision, but understood that he had always made the choices best for him.

"Even though it felt a little unusual for us for him to select (Iowa), he is his own trailblazer," Cathy said. "The rest of his family would never yell for Iowa, but they always were very supportive of Mark."