The private school in Festus hired R.J. Eberhart in April as the head coach for its new program. Eberhart, 42, is a 1997 St. Pius graduate and retired Air Force veteran who coached wrestling at O’Fallon High in Illinois the past four years. He’s been a youth coach in the sport for a decade.
“I want to develop the team and work with people who want to put time in the sport,” Eberhart said. “If you’re willing to do that, it’s about creating good, solid men and women.”
Administrators at St. Pius had talked about starting wrestling for several years. St. Pius president Jim Lehn said Eberhart was a good fit for the head coaching job as a Pius alumnus and because of his military background. Eberhart enlisted in the Air Force right after high school and served as an aircraft mechanic. After transferring to Scott Air Force Base in St. Clair County, Ill., in 2013, he supervised 100 mechanics until his retirement in 2020.
“He brings a lot of knowledge to the school,” Lehn said. “His methodical approach in the Air Force helped him develop the skills needed to lead young people.”
“I worked in a training environment my whole career,” Eberhart said. “If you train a kid right, you can break bad habits. You need to drill them. I train, they perform the move and if they get it wrong, we go back and do it until it’s right. I’m a hands-on coach.”
In a press release from St. Pius on April 28, Tilden Watson, the school’s activities director, said he’d been asked dozens of times by parents if a wrestling program would be added.
“R.J. is a great fit, being an alum who brings a strong work ethic and quality coaching credentials to the program,” Watson said. “His knowledge of the sport and contacts in wrestling will be invaluable as we get the team rolling.”
Eberhart and his family live in O’Fallon. His wife, Erin (formerly O’Neal), is also a 1997 St. Pius graduate. They have a daughter, Claire, and son, Jack, is entering his senior year at O’Fallon. Jack is 6-6 and 300 pounds, plays football for the Panthers and is drawing the eye of college recruiters.
An affinity for wrestling comes naturally for Eberhart. He grew up in Maquoketa in east central Iowa, a state with a rich history of collegiate dominance in the sport; the University of Iowa won the NCAA championship this year and the Hawkeyes traded off the NCAA title with rival Iowa State University every year between 1975 and 1987.
When Eberhart’s father was transferred to Jefferson County by Union Pacific Railroad in 1995, it ended R.J.’s high school wrestling career. Instead, he played football for the Lancers and earned all-conference honors his senior year.
Eberhart said about 20 St. Pius students attended two camps this summer led by him as well as Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville assistant coach Ty Prazma and wrestlers from Eberhart’s O’Fallon squad. The Lancers don’t have mats yet, so Eberhart borrowed some from the De Soto youth wrestling club. Lehn said the school is buying equipment for wrestling and that a new set of mats can cost between $10,000 and $15,000.
The wrestling team will compete with the boys and girls basketball teams for winter athletes. The small St. Pius gym doesn’t afford the space to hold practice for basketball and wrestling at the same time, so the wrestlers will train on the stage above the basketball court.
Last spring, the school opened a new wellness center with a weight room on the bottom floor. A mezzanine level not yet completed could include space for wrestling. Lehn said that decision hasn’t been made yet.
“We’re not a school for wrestling, we’re an academic school that has wrestling. It’s one more sport to expand the diversity of our students,” Lehn said. “We’re looking for mats. We don’t know what the first year looks like as far as meets at the school. We’re doing this through operational funds through the school. We planned on this in the budget cycle last year.”
Eberhart also has experience as a grant writer through his work with diabetes organizations and will write grant requests for St. Pius, which raised $198,000 to build the wellness center.
“We’re confident the time is right for wrestling,” Lehn said.
St. Pius joins the De Soto, Festus, Herculaneum, Hillsboro and Windsor wrestling programs in the Jefferson County Activities Association. The Lancers will face stiff competition from their county rivals. The Dragons have produced two state champions (Landon Porter and Jaycee Foeller) in the last three years and the defending JCAA champion Hawks finished third in the state in boys Class 3 in 2021.
“There is fantastic wrestling in the area,” Eberhart said. “There is so much talent in southern Missouri and Illinois.”
“I want to start a youth program at St. Pius once we get settled in and get our own space. The learning curve in this sport is sharper than any other. If you get good competition at a younger age, it makes you and your team better. It’s not about numbers, it’s about who’s there. I was told once, you coach the willing.”