In South Georgia, football is definitely considered the preferred sport. It has brought Valdosta national attention, but times are changing. Valdosta and South Georgia are becoming known for wrestling thanks to guys like Jason Griner.

Griner, a Lowndes High School graduate, is one of the coaches of the South Georgia Athletic Club’s Devil Dogs wrestling team. The Devil Dogs are a wrestling organization that’s a member of Team Georgia, the governing body of USA Wrestling in Georgia, with various age and weight classes for boys and girls. The group is making a name for itself in the world of wrestling across the United States. I was introduced to Griner through my cousin, Heather, whose son, Noah Pettigrew, is one of his students.

Coaching wrestling wasn’t always one of Griner’s goals.

Griner, 45, was born in Hahira and raised between Cook and Lowndes counties. He attended Cook County schools until the ninth grade when he began attending Lowndes High School and ended up a member of the very first wrestling team.

“When we got started at Lowndes, nobody knew anything,” he said. “Coach (Newnan) Sanchez taught us out of a book. We learned and that first year was terrible. We had some guys that did real well that first year. The second year we all did better. Some guys won the region championships. I was a mediocre wrestler at best.”

He ended up going to college and started working for the State of Georgia in Cook County. That’s where wrestling came back into his life.

 “I had a foster kid that I saw a lot of potential in,” Griner said. “I knew that there was a wrestling club that just started called Lowndes Youth Take Down Club. I continued to help and help coach and eventually we joined Lowndes Youth Take Down Club with the South Georgia Athletic Club.”

 Griner, who now works at Turning Point Outpatient Center in Moultrie as a licensed clinical social worker, continued working with the wrestling organization until several of the other coaches had to step down due to other obligations. They decided to restructure the wrestling club with the help of some parents.

“We wanted kids to not feel alienated because of the name Lowndes,” he said. “So we decided to take on SGAC and

combine our organizations and coaching staff. After restructuring with some parents, the Devil Dogs came about. We got parents together, formed a board, got incorporated as a nonprofit because I never wanted it to be a profit thing. This is about the kids and that’s what we’re there for.”

 Griner’s coaching abilities are paying off. At one time, the team averaged between 50 to 85 kids throughout the entire year, locally.

 Griner is seeing more kids becoming involved in wrestling as the sport becomes more popular.

“We’re seeing more kids dedicate themselves to wrestling,” he said. “I’m not one of those guys who says that kids just have to wrestle but there’s a mentality around here that you have to play one sport or another. A lot of people don’t understand that wrestling can benefit every other sport. The intensity of wrestling is so much more than you’ll find in any other sport. Wrestling teaches you to think, be physical and to be able … to be physical.”

Griner, who is also a national team coach for Team Georgia, credits his former wrestling coach, as well as two other coaches, Bruce Long and Frankie Cowen, for his coaching ethics.

“One thing I’ve learned is that I knew we had to do more for our little guys. We had to get kids involved,” he said. “You wrestle by weight and age. You take a kid that’s too small to play football and he’s a hundred pounds soaking wet. He’s a sophomore in high school, he can be a stand-out wrestler.”

He credits his family that supports him, especially his big brother. He’s also hoping more girls get involved in the sport. Right now, the group has three girls wrestling and, Griner said, Team Georgia is working hard to get competitions dedicated to just girl matches.

“Most of the time, (the girls) have to wrestle boys and a lot of people think that’s a disadvantage, but not always,” he said. “It’s a shame that more girls aren’t involved in that and it gives them confidence that I don’t think you can get in any other sport.”

When Griner isn’t busy coaching the Devil Dogs and traveling to wrestling competitions, he spends a lot of his time traveling from Moultrie where he works then home to Sparks, where he lives. He has been with Turning Point Outpatient Center for about seven years after having interned there while getting his master’s degree from Valdosta State University.

“Turning Point has been real supportive in what I do, especially the wrestling program. They’ve helped us out a lot, the CEO Ben Marion and my boss, Warren McKinney.”

When he’s not traveling between work and home and to Valdosta for wrestling, Griner is busy being the president of the Valdosta Kennel Club and being a part-time instructor at Valdosta State.

“We’ve got a good club here and do a lot in the community,” he said. “We give a lot to the Humane Society and groups like that. We’re also doing educational programs with 4-H and we help the spay/neuter programs in the area.”

In previous years, Griner used to show Siberian Huskies at various dog shows. He has bred and handled various breeds.

“I teach handling classes at the club house once a week,” he said. “It’s dog show handling, so I teach people how to handle their dogs in the show dog competitions. People think it’s nothing to do it but it’s actually easier to teach the dog obedience in some ways because what you’re doing is teaching the dog something that’s unnatural to them like stand still and those kind of things. You’re doing that in obedience, too, but now you’ve got someone putting their hands all over them and touching them. The handler has to be invisible but control the dog. I’ve won several best of breeds.”

One of those wins came with his beloved Blaze, a red-and-white Siberian Huskie that passed away this past May at the age of 16.

“She was special,” he said. “The weekend she won her championship on a Saturday, showed her again that Sunday and moved her into the best in breed competition and the number one Siberian Huskie in the country was there and we beat him.”

At VSU, he’s a part-time instructor in the Masters of Social Work field. He’s taught for two years and has been a field instructor for about six years. As a field instructor, interns work with him and he helps teach them how to apply what they have learned in class to a working environment.

“A lot was given to me in both wrestling and in (my career), I want to give back and I think if more people did that, we would have a lot more for our kids to benefit from,” Griner said.

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