Battered, bruised and still nursing a broken right wrist, Downers Grove North senior E.J. Phillips sought out Trojans coach Chris McGrath in a school hallway shortly before the wrestling season began. He had bad news.
“Coach,” Phillips said, “I don’t think I can wrestle this year.”
“The next day he found me again, less than 24 hours later,” McGrath said. “He said, ‘I don’t know what I was thinking yesterday. I’m not a wimp. I want to finish this thing.’ He’s one of the toughest kids I’ve ever seen. I still get choked up thinking about that.”
No one would have blamed Phillips if he decided to throw in the towel. He came out for wrestling as a sophomore, a diamond in the rough, placing third at regionals and just missing out on a state tournament berth. The following year, he broke his left wrist during the football season but still played in eight games, as the Trojans advanced to the 7A quarterfinals.
A separated shoulder his junior year limited his wrestling season to just one match. Poised to make a strong final run his senior year, Phillips broke his right wrist during football and feared the worst for the upcoming wrestling season.
“I just thought back to the last two years when I got a chance to go to a match that would get me Downstate, and I lost,” Phillips said. “That was my motivation for this year. I felt like I put way too much work into this to just give up on it.”
By Christmas, he was back on the mat. His win at the Batavia Tournament was a sign of things to come. Wrestling at 285 pounds, he finished second at the Class 3A Morton Regional two weeks ago and again at the Downers North Sectional last weekend. In what might have been his best match of the season, he pinned Marist’s Jake Ford at the 1:31 mark to advance to the finals, where he defaulted in the title match to Hinsdale Central’s Matt Allen, having already secured a state berth.
“Oh, man. That was the best feeling in the world,” Phillips said about qualifying for state. “As soon as I got off the mat, I ran and hugged my mom as hard as I could.”
“Anybody who’s wrestled him knows that he doesn’t have a lot of moves,” McGrath said. “But like he always says, if someone is going to beat him, he’s going to have to beat the best he’s got.”
Phillips’ future involves playing football at Northern Michigan. He signed his national letter of intent earlier this month. In wrestling, despite the runner up finish at the Sectional, Phillips is flying under the radar. He’s ranked 12th in Class 3A at heavyweight according to Illinoismatmen.com. But that only makes him more aggressive.
“My motivation is that I’m not considered up there with the big guys when it comes to ranking,” Phillips said. “I’m not a big guy when it comes to rankings, but I like to see the guy who put these together count me out. In my mind, I think I’m capable of being one of the top heavyweights in the state.
“And I’m ready to prove it this weekend.”