When Jerry Brooks was a kid, he was intrigued by wrestling. Watched it on television. Cheered for the stars of the WWE – Dusty Rhodes, Ric Flair. So, when he heard his junior high had a wrestling team – what could be better than trying out for that?

“I learned very quickly it was nothing like what was on TV. It was a big shock there. And my friends were thinking the same as well,” he says. “We found out it was different.  But we hung in there, and that’s what made it fun.”

Brooks, a 1991 East Gaston High School graduate, had enough fun to win two state championships, be recruited by several colleges and excel at the NCAA level. His success has landed him in the Mount Holly Sports Hall of Fame.

Like the WWE stars, Brooks’ wrestling career had an entourage – not the boisterous, flamboyant kind, but a network of support in his family, friends and coaches that guided a child from Stanley along the path to where he is now – a successful business owner in metro Raleigh, with a wife and two children.

“Coach (Doug) Smith (at East Gaston) was the one who always kept his finger on me, when I was going to school, who asked who I hung out with, made sure I kept my head on straight and made sure I didn’t mess up the opportunity I had in front of me,” Brooks says. “He stayed focused on me. In that day and age, where there weren’t too many guys getting scholarships for wrestling, he made sure I had the opportunity. He would tell me, ‘Be careful these next four or five years, because what you do now is going to determine the type of lifestyle you’re going to live.’”

Brooks grew up watching his father and uncles play sports, and he took to football and baseball, along with wrestling. At Stanley Middle School, then at East Gaston, it meant year-round competition – one season following another, year after year. He started on the wrestling team in eighth grade, tipping in at 121 pounds, and remembers receiving a Most Valuable Player award. “I won whatever matches I got to wrestle,” he says.

By ninth grade, he was 145 pounds and learning that success is a group effort.

The 1991 team won the state 4A title with a 40-15 victory over Cary and went 20-0 in dual meets. “First of all, one thing about that season, I’ll be honest with you, is that I was very fortunate to have some great coaches and we had real good chemistry on that team,” Brooks says. “We had a strong team up and down the line-up, and there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team.’ It’s an individual sport, but it’s a team sport, and we cheered each other on and moved some guys up and down the line-up to give us the way to win the match.

“There was no bickering, no fighting. We practiced every day after school, in the cafeteria. We’d move the chairs and unroll the mats and move in there and start wrestling. We didn’t have a wrestling room at East Gaston; we’d move the chairs, then move them back.”

He won two state championships as an individual, but credits the team. “We were all inseparable. We worked hard, because we knew we were being hunted – everyone was out to get us. And that’s what motivated us. We didn’t take any shortcuts. Every time we went somewhere, we were humble,” he says. “We let our work show on the mats.”

Favorite memory? “Seeing my cousin, Mario McCorkle, win a state championship,” he says. “My junior season in high school, going through there and winning the team state championship, and seeing my cousin do good in the tournament. And winning state championships as a team. Those were the most memorable times of my career.”

A few small colleges took notice of Brooks for football, but mostly it was wrestling. Schools from Vermont to Pembroke had him on their wish lists. “But the one that stood out the most, that was Division I and had the academics, was Campbell. I got a partial scholarship, the most that was ever offered a freshman, then after my first year, it became full,” he says. He sat out his freshman year to concentrate on academics, then competed the following seasons.

He holds the Campbell school record for most pins in a season, with 17 in 1994-95, and is second all-time in wins for a season, with 39, also in 1994-95. He is 14th in school history in career wins, with 64, from 1993 to 1996.

He graduated from the Research Triangle area university with a degree in Business Administration and Education.

He met his wife, Theresa, in 1993 at Campbell, and they married in 2000. The family lives near Raleigh, and Theresa, who also has a master’s in special education from Belmont Abbey, is a teacher with Wake County Public Schools. Their son Jalen, 15, wrestles – he was fourth his state meet, in the private school sector as a 9th grader. Their daughter, Jada, turned 12 in July. Jerry Brooks owns five franchises of Dickey’s Barbecue Pit. He’s been in the restaurant business since 2011.

Brooks credits the support of his late father, Jerry “Pete” Brooks, and his mother, Mary Ann Arnold, as well as his coaches, with giving him the foundation to create the life he leads. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the coaches and my teammates, throughout my athletic career,” he says, of the Hall of Fame induction. “Being from around Mount Holly and going to East Gaston, that small-town community, it’s something I wish I had for my children. But it got me to where I am today. It’s precious to me. Home is home. I like it.”