Bullies love to prey on the small, weak and unconfident. At 5-foot-2 and 100 pounds, Brien Elliott was an easy target.
It was 1982 and Elliott, the shy son of a struggling single mother, was late to class at Woodway High School in Edmonds. The diminutive sophomore was stressed about being tardy, but at least he was headed to his favorite class, wood shop.
Enter the bully.
Michael O’Leary / The Herald
As Elliott race-walked through campus, he realized he was all alone – except for one much bigger, sneering upperclassman who rapidly slithered toward Elliott. There was no escape. Whether it was the product of a dare or just a case of pure, pointless cruelty, Elliott never found out. Nevertheless, the bully taped the defenseless youth to a nearby tree and chuckled before eventually cutting him loose.
Elliott was devastated. Now even more delayed, he was also consumed by embarrassment. “I felt like a coward. I was humiliated,” Elliott said.
When a teary-eyed Elliott finally trudged into wood shop, his sympathetic teacher wanted an explanation. “I’m your teacher and you’re late,” said Bryce Cook, who taught and coached wrestling at Woodway. Cook pulled Elliott aside, away from the curious eyes of other students, and Elliott described the demeaning incident.
Cook was saddened but he offered Elliott, whom Cook had previously encouraged to join the wrestling team, a shred of hope. “I can promise you one thing, Brien,” Cook said. “I can’t guarantee you you’ll win or lose, but I can guarantee that if you wrestle things like this will never happen to you again.”
‘It’s about kids’
Wrestling has played a central role in Cook’s life, but it wasn’t always his sport of choice. “I guess I was a terrible basketball player,” he said, “so I turned out for wrestling and the sport’s been good to me ever since.”
Cook, now 65, quickly found his niche on the mats at Burlington-Edison High, placing second in the state as a freshman (112) and snaring a state championship as a senior (127). He went on to compete for Washington State University and had a remarkably successful 30-year head coaching run at Woodway before he retired in ‘93.
Cook, who in ‘94 was inducted into the Washington State Wrestling Coaches Hall of Fame, coached several individual state champs and turned Woodway into a powerful, consistent program. But he didn’t do it simply by persuading natural athletes who simply needed minor fine-tuning. “It’s easy to recruit a jock and have success (in wrestling) but a lot of kids can be involved. … It’s not about coaches. It’s about kids.”
That includes average or down-and-out kids like Elliott, who had minimal athletic ability but needed something positive in his tumultuous life.
Elliott’s parents divorced when he was 9 and his mother moved Elliott and his younger sister from St. Louis to Washington to be near other family; he didn’t see his father for another 20-plus years. Before turning 18 Elliott bounced around to three junior highs and four high schools. His mother worked two jobs but struggled to provide basic necessities.
After a brief stint at Shorecrest High, Elliott landed at Woodway. Life was often harsh but he found solace and a creative outlet in wood shop, and a friend in Cook. “He was fun and I respected him,” Elliott said.
Cook frequently encouraged students to wrestle – he worked on Elliott for more than a year – and the bullying episode finally convinced Elliott to sign up.
Then came a cruel twist. On the first day of Woodway wrestling practice in ‘82, Elliott’s family was evicted because his mom missed too many bill payments. With help from relatives, the Elliotts immediately planned to move north to Everett. So later that day a disappointed Elliott showed his school withdrawal slip to Cook.
Cook was glum, but he asked Elliott to keep his promise: he would wrestle, even if it wasn’t for Cook.
Said Elliott, “That instilled in me(the principle) to keep my word.”
A triumphant reunion
After leaving Woodway, Elliott enrolled at Mariner and tried out for the then-powerhouse program. “It was awful,” said Elliott, who said rigorous workouts pushed him to the brink of mental and physical exhaustion. “I got beat up by everyone and felt dejected.”
Every time Elliott wanted to quit – and at first it was often – he remembered his promise to Cook. And after suffering pin after pin against teammates in practice, Elliott got better. He made varsity by the end of his sophomore year and earned a letter.
“It became a real positive experience for me,” Elliott said, “so I stuck with it.”
Another money-related move landed Elliott at Everett High, where he spent his final two years of high school. Home life remained turbulent but wrestling was his anchor. Elliott, who grew to 5-8 and was a muscular 115 pounds, became a senior captain, a district champion and a state-tourney qualifier for the Seagulls.
Also that season, Elliott reconnected with an influential friend when Everett had a meet at Woodway.
En route to the weigh-in Elliott spotted Cook, who hadn’t seen Elliott since the day he withdrew from Woodway.
“Remember me?” asked Elliott, who was now an inch taller than the 5-7 Cook.
Cook needed a few seconds to let the transformation sink in. Then: “Oh my gosh! Man, you stuck with it!”
Elliott won his bout that night. Afterward, Cook beamed with pride when he shook Elliott’s hand, smiling as if his own wrestler had prevailed.
Giving back
Elliott’s passion for wrestling and his relationship with Cook launched him to a fulfilling career.
“Now I’m watching the same little Brien Elliott’s running around,” Elliott said. “I don’t make a lot of money but I feel really good about what I do.”
Elliott has coached wrestling for 15 years – this is his first season leading the Everett High program – and he is a second-year math teacher at North Middle School. He savors his chances to enrich the lives of youngsters, just like Cook did for him.
“All of these (positive) things in my life,” said Elliott, who is married and has two young daughters, “I got because one guy didn’t give up on talking me into wrestling.”
Elliott had a similar effect on Jeremy Bennett, a ‘92 Everett grad who grew up in foster care and found structure and confidence in wrestling. “He kind of treated us like a big brother. He never judged anybody,” said Bennett, who now coaches youth wrestlers (kindergarten through eighth grade) who feed into the Everett program.
‘I needed wrestling’
Elliott and Cook remain close. Cook, who lives east of Mount Vernon on Big Lake, is a volunteer coach at Burlington-Edison High and travels south a few times a year to share his expertise with grapplers in Elliott’s program.
Cook, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, downplays the impact he had on the undersized young boy named Brien who kept his promise after being bullied more than 20 years ago (“I may have planted the seed,” Cook said, “but he did all the work.”).
But Cook clearly changed Elliott’s life. Three years ago Elliott named an annual award after Cook. It honors a teacher who has had an extraordinary influence on a wrestler in the Everett program, and student-athletes vote for their favorite instructor.
With his wrestlers’ permission, Elliott proudly gave the inaugural award to Cook, the man who helped Elliott discover a sport that altered his outlook and continues to enhance his existence.
“Wrestling didn’t need me,” Elliott said, “but I needed wrestling.”
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