P.J. Bory was destined to wrestle.
Long before he became a Cavalier, before he made himself into an ACC champion, Bory was born into a family where older brothers and cousins were always on the mats. He has memories of being in the gym to watch practices long before he was old enough to get out there himself.
When he finally hit first grade, Bory began perfecting his craft under the guidance of his uncle, his first Pee Wee coach. As the youngest child in his extended family, Bory was "mesmerized" by his older siblings and cousins. His brother James is only 13 months older, so the two were in the same grade at school and grew up best friends, a bond they still share. Another relative, though, was his idol when it came to wrestling.
"My cousin wrestled at Hunter College in New York City," Bory said. "I used to watch him and imitate his moves, his shoes. He was my wrestling motivation."
Those moves landed Bory on a touring club squad that took him from his hometown of Suffern, N.Y., as far as Belarus to wrestle the junior national teams of the former Soviet Republics.
"We were there in 1995, in the reform era after communism fell," Bory said. "It was very cool."
Wrestling took him across the United States as well, though Bory admits that often all he saw of a city was his hotel room and the arena.
As a collegiate wrestler at Virginia, Bory also saw the best wrestlers in the ACC on his way to winning the conference championship in the 141-pound weight class last year. This season, he is wrestling at 149, which means that he will face old rival Tommy Davis of N.C. State this weekend. Is Bory distracted knowing that this is his final season after 17 years of competitive wrestling?
"At the beginning of the year, I was very conscious that this was my last season," he said. "So I might have been too tight."
Cavalier assistant coach Jim Harshaw, a 1999 Virginia grad and Bory's roommate for two years, offered guidance and told him to relax.
"I've watched him go through it," Bory said. "So it's not just a coach-athlete relationship, it's on a friend-friend level."
Bory, a 5-foot-7 fifth-year senior, is a graduate student in the Curry School of Education. A self-proclaimed "people person," he hopes to become a high school guidance counselor one day, both to make his mark with kids and to keep his hand in the wrestling world as a coach.
"I can't imagine myself not being involved with the sport," he said. "My high school coach was a guidance counselor. There are so many bad counselors out there [though] it's not always their fault because they have so many kids thrown at them. But I'm a pretty good mediator and I think [counseling] is something I'd be good at."
If counseling does not work out, he could always fall back on a job as a performance water-skier.
"My family used to go water-skiing in upstate New York," Bory said. "We could have been sleeping on the street and Dad would have found a way to hold on to the boat. I love water-skiing and I don't get to do it as much as I'd like to anymore."
For now, however, Bory is turning his concentration to sports on dry land. With a little more than a month left in the regular season, last year's ACC champ is looking beyond conference competition and slowly bringing to a close his tenure as team captain.
"P.J. has the seniority on this team," Harshaw said. "He is a vocal leader and motivator. He is well-liked."
Bory's postseason goals - repeating as ACC champion and earning All-American honors at NCAAs - are explicit. He knows that if he can shake off lingering knee problems and stay healthy, he is capable of achieving them. That quest begins tomorrow at Memorial Gymnasium, where the Cavs (3-4) open their ACC season against N.C. State (5-6) at 1 p.m. and Duke (8-4) at 7 p.m.
"Wrestling is an individual sport," said Bory, whose record is 11-7 this season. "The glory is all yours. It's motivation, too, though, because you can only blame yourself. The best feeling in the world is getting your hand raised after a match"
Read More
No. 6 men’s lacrosse falters late, fumbling chance at huge victory over No. 1 Notre Dame
By Michael Liebermann | 47 minutes agoThe ache of last season's defeat will persist.
No. 6 women’s lacrosse eliminated by No. 4 Syracuse in ACC Semifinal
By Peter Kratz | 56 minutes agoA forgettable first-half performance sunk the ship for the Cavaliers.
Malik Washington selected 184th overall in the 2024 NFL Draft by the Miami Dolphins
By Xander Tilock | 22 hours agoWashington may have fallen down the draft board, but he will surely make a significant impact at the professional level.
