Coaches Robert Ervin (far left) and Brooks Black (background) speak with Union County High School wrestler Davis Pike (foreground) at the Johnny Drennan Invitational in 2020. Their team won, finishing first out of 50 teams. Despite this excellent win, Ervin said he is most proud that the head official of the tournament took the time afterward to write a letter to the principal of Union County High School praising the character of their athletes. COURTESY OF ERVIN FAMILY

BY ELIZABETH WONG BARNSTEAD, THE WESTERN KENTUCKY CATHOLIC

At 20 years, the head wrestling coach at Union County High School in Morganfield, Ky., says his faith “is what keeps me coaching. It’s my calling.”

Robert Ervin, who is Catholic and a member of St. Ann Parish in Morganfield, credits his athletes for “helping me as much as I’m helping them,” he said. “They’ve made me a better person, too.”

His team has won 14 state championships – and seven in a row – breaking both program records and records for longest consecutive winning streak in Kentucky state history.

Yet, the UCHS wrestling team is different in more than winning streaks.

“The core of everyone is their values, so we work really hard on the values and virtues,” said Ervin of his athletes. “We want them to be good people first and good athletes second.”

Several years ago, Ervin implemented a virtue-based program originally called SportsLeader, recently renamed Virtue=Strength.

He told The Western Kentucky Catholic that his team had been winning significantly, but he felt something was missing.

“We had to put our efforts into something other than winning,” said Ervin, who came across Virtue=Strength after a period of prayer and research.

Virtue=Strength is a Catholic program, but its executive director, Lou Judd, worked with Ervin to adapt it to a public school setting.

“We have so many different denominations as part of our team,” said Ervin, who wanted to make sure it was accessible to athletes of any faith tradition.

The program made a distinct impact on the students.

That first year of implementing Virtue=Strength, Judd showed Ervin how to create a father-son singlet ceremony.

It happened to be a challenging year to begin this type of ceremony: two boys on the team had just lost their father. Other students did not have their biological dads in their lives.

He and his coaches, with Judd’s assistance, decided they would have both fathers and father-figures at the singlet ceremony – so that every young man had a dad figure participating in the event.

At the ceremony, held in the gym, the son and father-figure were sent to different rooms. Ervin then went into the room with the dad and explained that “This is a really tough sport. You’re gonna tell them how proud you are of them. Be specific with what you see in them – basically tell them you love them.”

The dads were to then walk out, give their son their singlet and tell them how much they love and respect them, said Ervin.

Though Ervin was “really nervous because I was unsure how this would go,” it ended up being “a great way to start the season off,” he said.

“There are some really tough dads that probably have never shed a tear before… I cried, the fathers cried” as the dads told the boys “I love you, I respect you and I’ve got your back,” said Ervin.

He said they have now been doing the singlet ceremony for seven or eight years.

Ervin has also incorporated a mother-son ceremony. Unlike the father-son event, the boys and their moms gather in the school’s library with finger foods and punch.

“The sons have to get up and do the talking” at this ceremony, said Ervin.

Each athlete writes a letter or poem ahead of time telling their mothers how much they love them. Ervin added that he and his fellow coaches “help guide their letter writing and make it meaningful.”

At each mother’s turn, “we put Mom in a chair of honor” and then her son “tells the crowd how wonderful she is,” said Ervin.

These parent ceremonies proved to be “the biggest turning point in our program,” said Ervin. Today, “our parents are the most committed parents of a sports program that I’ve seen. I think those two things bring everybody closer together.”

He incorporates virtue into his athletes’ everyday life, too.

Ervin said that just as the team might spend a period of time focusing on “practicing a specific move or play,” he likes to provide a certain virtue for the team to work on that week.

For instance, if the virtue is “charity,” Ervin said “that week everyone has to go out and do acts of charity,” big or small, he added. “Then we’ll talk about that.”

“We’re intentional about repetition” of both wrestling methods and good values, he said.

He said their team participates in tournaments in several other states, and that “we’ve had officials from different schools send letters commenting on how well-behaved and disciplined our team is.”

Ervin said it is also good for the younger players and middle schoolers to “see our guys holding hands and praying together.”

It doesn’t hurt either that parents have observed this witness: “Parents see that and think, ‘Hey, I want my kid to be a part of this,’” he said.

Ervin is grateful for the support of the school’s athletic director and the local superintendent in implementing Virtue=Strength: “We need their backing, and they’re open to us praying together and doing more than just coaching.”

Plus, “we have a very committed coaching staff on the same page as I am,” he said.

Following two decades of coaching and looking forward to many more years, Ervin said he has seen “a lot of success, and I’m thankful for that.”

“I want to be impactful on the lives of our athletes,” he said.

Ervin appreciates the ability to evangelize by showing that “it’s cool to pray and live a virtuous life. That’s why I’m still doing it.”

“Who you surround yourself with is your support group,” he said, and emphasized the importance of “being around like-minded people – it’s made me who I am.”