“Come on, Zaynie!”
The words of Georgia Lehman echoed in circles around The Convo. To many fans, the boisterous nature might seem excessive. However, that is not the case for Zayne Lehman and his family.
Growing up on the outskirts of Akron, the Lehman family has always been close. Georgia and Scott have four children, each of whom possesses unique talents and abilities. These talents have helped the family bond.
Wrestling, traditionally speaking, is not a family event. Even the best collegiate wrestlers are hard-pressed to get loved ones to attend a handful of duals, partially due to the ever-changing nature of the sport. A wrestler can hear his or her name announced before a dual, warm up and still not even touch the mats if the coach decides to go with another wrestler who made weight that day. This differs from a sport like football or basketball where players usually know if they’ll play that day.
Those obstacles have never been too much for the Lehmans.
“My whole entire family, my parents especially, have not missed one college match of mine yet,” Zayne said. “They make it a very, very good point to come to everything, supporting me with everything.”
The Lehmans, however, do not just attend these matches. Between Georgia and Scott, and other close family members, they do enough coaching to make Coach Joel Greenlee’s job almost obsolete when Zayne is wrestling.
That does not mean that watching Zayne is an easy thing for Georgia.
“When (174-pounds) is wrapping up, I get up and get away from everybody,” Georgia said. “There are two reasons for that. Both my husband and son usually stay right where they’re sitting… They may be critiquing him a little bit when he is wrestling. I don’t like that. I don’t want to be there and hear critiquing being done because that is my little Zaynie out there … I also do get nervous and don’t like sitting so I get up and move away from the family and go off by myself. That way, if I need to stretch this way or that way to help (Zayne) get this position that he is trying to get, I can do that without bothering everybody.”
Seemingly, Georgia, Scott and their other son, Zeck, have helped lead Zayne in the right direction. Zayne has quietly become a model of consistency for Ohio. His record overall is 17-9 on the season, and he went 18-8 last season. However, his recent dominant stretch punctuated a tremendous season for Lehman. He went 10-3 in duals, including a perfect 7-0 record in the Mid-American Conference.
February’s final regular season rankings had Lehman listed as the No. 3 wrestler in the 184-pound class. That being said, Lehman defeated the No. 2 wrestler, Buffalo’s Giuseppe Hoose, 8-5 in the regular season finale. His improvements this season, though, stretch farther than just his performance on the mat.
“I just take everything I learned last year and even the speed bumps that I had (at the beginning of the season),” Zayne said. “I didn’t even really start that hot, kind of flipped it midway through the year. I went back and looked at the little things and broke it down and really focused on my warm up, the mental aspect of it. I got my nutrition down and that’s been a big aspect of it… really focusing on my conditioning and going back to why I did the sport and that is because I love it.”
Zayne’s season is not over yet, though. There’s still a bit of uncertainty. After the NCAA released the bid allocations for the NCAA Championships, Zayne found himself on the outskirts of the bubble. The MAC was granted two spots for the 184-pound class, and Zayne was No. 3. His fate lies in the MAC Championships.
However, none of that matters to Zayne. He has the greatest support system necessary in his corner: his family. No matter how the chips fall in the MAC Championships, he can consider himself a winner.
