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Lafayette "Fred Ross" Invitational Wrestling Tournament 2026
Lafayette High School-Wildwood, Missouri, USA
The Lafayette Wrestling Tournament was held on 01/10/2026. The tournament has been renamed the Lafayette "Fred Ross" Boys & Girls Invitational in recent years in honor of the well-known Lafayette High School wrestling Coach Fred Ross. I have a memory of the man being honored that will stay with me for a lifetime. I was 15 and wrestling at Crestview Jr. High School in the Rockwood School District in then Chesterfield, Missouri, USA. The year was 1982 and I was one of a few African American wrestlers in the Rockwood School District and Coach Ross came to the Jr. High School to recruit me for the next year. I have to admit I was a little intimidated. Coach Ross walked up in his Cowboy Hat and Cowboy Boots and his voice, demeanor, and drawl said to say no. We talked for about ten minutes, and he left with a firm you will be wrestling for me next season.
I was in my first season of wrestling for Coach Ross at Lafayette High School and I soon learned that Fred Ross was a very serious wrestling coach. I was athlete always in the ten in sports and sometimes within the top five if not number one. I had always gotten by on natural athletic ability. "Frazier you can't just brute strength you way through it here. I need wrestling moves and techniques from you. You're at the High School level." I began to learn who Coach Ross really is a wrestling coach. "Darren Coach Ross has a Little League wrestling team he coaches." When you wrestled the kids, he coached for years it was all moves and technique. I was sitting on the mat of the old wrestling room at the Old Lafayette High School talking to Todd Powers and he said, "I have been wrestling for Coach Ross since I was maybe nine years old." That means six years of technical wrestling experience. It was never an enjoyable task fighting for a Varsity position which I fought for a varsity position my first year of wrestling. Coach Ross maybe sure I had the skills to compete against a senior for that varsity position. Mid-season sophomore year Ralph Holstrom said I am tired of you challenging me for varsity. "You know I have to challenge you for the position. Coach Ross expects it of me." I had not bought wrestling shoes, yet when Coach Ross sat down before a planned challenge for Varsity and he looked at me and unlaced his wrestling shoes and gave them to me. "Now you have no excuse not to succeed on the wrestling mat." It is an honor to be Lafayette High Schools first African American State Qualifier. I owe that honor to Coach Ross; he pushed me to the level that is the Lafayette High School tradition of winning.
I never thought I would see girls wrestling at the High School level. I saw my first wrestling match featuring a girl in 2002 at Lafayette High School and she won against a guy I think the weight was 102. The girls of Lafayette High School wrestling have been carrying on the Lafayette wrestling winning tradition for almost 25 years. I watch the Lafayette "Fred Ross" Boys & Girls Invitational with Lancer pride and know in was fortunate enough to have had Fred Ross as a wrestling coach.
By Darren Dwayne Frazier
Photographs by Highland Productions LLC
