Elyria Sports Hall of Fame: Family main ingredient in all four of Erik Burnett's Hall of Fame inductions

Erik Burnett has been a Hall of Famer nearly half his life. If fact, when the longtime Elyria High wrestling coach is inducted into the Elyria Sports Hall of Fame on May 6, it will be his fourth Hall of Fame enshrinement. Burnett entered the Lorain County Wrestling Coaches and Officials Hall of Fame in 1997, the Ohio High School Wrestling Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2015 and the Clarion University Sports Hall of Fame in 2020. The difference with his latest induction is that he will be honored for the first time as a coach instead of as a competitor. He earned entry into the first two halls after becoming Ohio's fourth four-time high school state champion while at Oberlin, and picked up the third honor after finishing as an NCAA Division I All-American. It was Burnett's 25 years at the helm of the Pioneers program — turning Elyria into a nationally ranked powerhouse — that have earned him his first Hall of Fame recognition as a coach. Burnett will be joined by Elyria West basketball star Mary Lanette Taylor, Elyria football great Chase Farris, Elyria volleyball and basketball standout Kate Verhoff, Elyria Catholic three-sport ace Ellen Borowy Casey and the 1979 Elyria Catholic baseball team in the Class of 2023 during the induction banquet at Lorain County Community College's Spitzer Center. The organization will posthumously present longtime Elyria Parks and Recreation director Bill Troyer with its Distinguished Service Award. Burnett said there's still a link among all four halls of fame. "Everything has always been about family," he said. "Whether it was my mom and my dad (at Oberlin) and everything they did for me … and at Clarion with my teammates and my coaches, they grew to become a family. "But when it came to coaching, I had my family with my wife, Janet, and our two boys, Mick and Nate, but we had all the wrestlers and their families and the other coaches, which all became part of our family, too. So it's family at different levels if that makes sense. It's certainly never been a one-man show." Burnett took over as Elyria's head coach in 1997, and it took some convincing to get him on board. After making the transition from competitor to coach, he had spent several years on the Amherst staff and was beginning to make a name for himself. "We were building something pretty cool at Amherst and, in all honesty, even at 27 years old, I didn't feel like I could handle the responsibilities of running a program," Burnett said. But Elyria athletic director Mark "Torry" McGuire persisted in his pursuit of Burnett, who finally sought guidance from those who knew him best at the time. "They were really supportive … (Amherst coach) Bill Walker, (assistant coach) Mike Moos and all those other guys felt I was ready and that it would be a good thing for me," Burnett said. "So I came over to Elyria." The rest was historic. Elyria went 299-99 in dual meets under Burnett, winning 13 conference championships. The Pioneers produced 108 state qualifiers, 66 state placers, 27 state finalists and 12 state championships and were ranked in the top 40 in the nation from 2014-2020 — including top-20 finishes in 2016-19 and finishing in the top 10 in 2020. Elyria also finished as the state runner-up three times in the individual state tournament and twice in the dual team state tournament. The Pioneers finished on the big board — one of the top 10 Division I teams in the state — 11 times under Burnett. "We weren't winning much the first couple of years as a team," he said. "So being able to put five trophies in the trophy case … I mean you want to win (a state title), right? But we put five trophies in there and as far as from a competitive standpoint, we made tons of progress." Burnett credits the early teams with getting the whole process started, and one of the key contributors was Jack Gillespie, a senior during Burnett's rookie season at Elyria who returned after college to become one of his top assistants. "Looking back at (the years), I'm pretty grateful, appreciative of the things he showed me," Gillespie said. "That first year he showed us how to train right, how to work hard and we learned to fully buy in to the process. Then he just did what really great coaches do, kept evolving and elevating everything around him." There wasn't much secret when it came to Burnett's success as a coach. He worked tirelessly year-round, training athletes in freestyle and Greco-Roman when the folkstyle (or high school) season ended. He and his brother Scott — a 2011 ESHOF member — still run Burnett Trained Wrestling during the offseason, and when there are breaks from all of that, Erik gets on the mats with youth wrestlers to help them start developing the fundamentals. "I think it shows what type of mentor and role model he is because he's not just telling us all the things that we should be doing to be successful … he's living it right in front of our eyes," said Armando Torres, a Division I state runner-up under Burnett who became the Pioneers' coach after Burnett retired in 2022. "So we got to see firsthand the commitment, the dedication, the hard work — all that stuff — just by looking at how he lived his life. Now as somebody who is trying to kind of fill his shoes, it shows me what kind of work I need to put in. When you're passionate about something, it shows, and I'm pretty sure he's passionate about wrestling." Burnett calls the 25 years of running the Elyria program "a sprint" because it went by so fast but also because the relentless pursuit of greatness never seemed to stop. Burnett said he was fortunate to make a life in Elyria — what he calls the perfect community — and meet Janet — the perfect coach's wife and later the perfect wrestling mom — and raise two sons who made the decision to also become passionate about wrestling. Add in the right mix of coaches and energetic families supporting the whole system … and Burnett felt like his coaching career was something of a dream come true. And while those trophies, national rankings and long list of individual and team accomplishments are certainly what earned Burnett his ticket to the latest Hall of Fame, he said the greatest coaching reward came long after all those singlets had been hung up for the final time. "Coaching was more about forging relationships and everybody learning life lessons," he said. "So we tried to help people become productive members of society and all those guys have done that. All those guys throughout the years bought in and now they are all thriving out in the world. It's an amazing thing." Contact Shaun Bennett at (440) 329-7137 or sbennett@chroniclet.com. Like him on Facebook and follow him @ShaunBennettct on Twitter.