Wrestling with success
Stout brothers carrying on family legacy
Step aside, Kurt Angle. A new name is becoming synonymous with the success of the Mt. Lebanon wrestling program.
When Kellan Stout won a PIAA championship in 2015, he became the first wrestler to win a state title for Mt. Lebanon since Angle did it 28 years before him. When Stout graduated with a 138-18 career record, the school’s all-time wins record once owned by Angle belonged to him.
By the end of next season, the last name at the top of the record book will be the same, but it likely won’t belong to Kellan anymore.
Kellan’s younger brother, Luke, just won his 100th career match in a dual meet Feb. 8 against Mars — and he’s only a junior. Luke is 30-1 on the season and ranked No. 2 at 182 pounds in the WPIAL after placing fourth at the PIAA tournament as a sophomore. If he keeps winning at his current pace, the all-time wins record is his for the taking — but maybe not for long.
The youngest of the three brothers is Mac, a freshman with a 25-7 record who is ranked No. 4 at 160 pounds in the WPIAL. Earlier this season, Mac became the first Mt. Lebanon freshman to make it onto the podium at the prestigious Powerade Christmas Tournament. By the time he graduates, the brothers could very well hold the top three spots on Mt. Lebanon’s career wins list.
The Stout brothers are a big reason why the Blue Devils’ former powerhouse program is back on the map. But their family name has commanded respect in the wrestling world since long before they stepped foot on a mat.
The beginning
Bryan Stout was the kind of wrestler who won matches before they even started.
Just one look at the hulking heavyweight’s frame would make even the biggest and baddest wrestlers in the nation contemplate their life choices as they squared off against him in the center of the circle.
With a neck thicker than a tree trunk and biceps big enough to make Hulk Hogan blush, Bryan looked more like a bodybuilder than a typical wrestler. Simply shaking his hand before a match likely served as a reliable indicator of the punishment he was about to inflict for the next seven minutes.
“Every once in a while at school people will look up a picture of my dad and be like, ‘Oh my god Mac, that’s your dad?’ They’re like, ‘There’s no way that’s Mac’s dad.’ And they’re like freaking out, it’s pretty funny,” Mac said.
As a senior in high school, Bryan put together one of the most dominant seasons in New Jersey’s storied history. He not only went 32-0 en route to his first and only state championship — he didn’t allow an opponent to score a single point on him all season long.
Bryan then wrestled at Clarion University, where Angle made his mark as a two-time national champion before going on to win a gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics. Angle stuck around at Clarion to train after graduating, and Bryan’s struggles simply to score a point against him in practice made his actual matches easy by comparison.
By the time his college career was over, Bryan had compiled a 110-23 record and earned a spot in the Eastern Wrestling League Hall of Fame. He never captured a national championship, but he did leave Clarion as the only four-time All-American in school history after placing in the top eight at the NCAA tournament in all four tries.
Not even Angle can say that.
An early start
Kellan Stout’s first exposure to the sport came when he was in first grade, back when Bryan was helping coach the Pitt wrestling team as a volunteer assistant. Now, Kellan is a 197-pound redshirt junior for the Panthers, wrestling in the same room where he grew up learning the sport from his dad.
Luke and Mac would tag along to practices as toddlers — Bryan said he has changed more diapers underneath bleachers than he cares to remember — and they started going to tournaments themselves around first grade. But they didn’t start taking it seriously and going to club practices until fifth or sixth grade.
“With Luke and Mac, I held them out a little bit longer than Kellan,” Bryan said. “Because I was more actively coaching when Kellan was little, so he was with me everywhere. He was constantly with me and competing. And I started to see — and Western PA is so intense with wrestling and I think that’s why we are the best in the country — but I think there’s a fine line where I’d seen so many talented kids burn out.”
By allowing his sons to get involved with wrestling on their own accord, Bryan avoided the pitfalls of pushing them too hard too fast and risking them falling out of love with the sport.
“I thought it was really important that they had the love for it and I wasn’t just throwing them in there to chase down wins,” Bryan said. “The sport is so intense and so personal, but it’s a marathon.”
Kellan’s journey up the ranks at the PIAA championships was a marathon in itself.
As a sophomore, Kellan qualified for states, but didn’t place. Then, as a junior, he made it all the way to the championship match, where he fell to Latrobe’s Zack Zavatsky for the fourth time that season. Luckily for him, Zavatsky was a senior. With his nemesis out of the way, Kellan put together a 380 record as a senior en route to a gold medal at the PIAA championship.
“I think that was the first time that I teared up with him wrestling that I can remember,” Bryan said. “It was just such a relief, I was so happy for him.”
Big brother’s footsteps
Seeing their older brother work his way up the podium until he finally reached the top has shown Luke and Mac just how hard it is to win a state title in Pennsylvania.
While Kellan didn’t make it to Hershey until his sophomore season, Luke qualified for the PIAA tournament as a freshman, although he didn’t place. He qualified again last year as a sophomore, only he did his older brother one better. By finishing in fourth place, he became the first Mt. Lebanon sophomore to make it onto the podium in Hershey.
Even though he’s already ahead of where his older brother was at this point, Luke said he won’t consider his high school career a failure if he doesn’t win a state title.
“I’d definitely be a little upset, but I don’t think high school is the whole thing,” Luke said. “I think it’s a path along to winning a national title in college. I think that’s my long-term goal. It would just be a bump along the road on my way for that.”
By taking home seventh place in the Powerade Christmas Tournament as a freshman, Mac already has at least one feat to his name that his older brothers never achieved. But when it comes to his long-term goals, it’s clear he isn’t shying away from the challenge of following in their footsteps.
“Some people might say it’s too high of a goal to set, but I think one of my biggest goals is to get more state titles [than Kellan and Luke],” Mac said. “I want to win multiple state titles, whether it’s two or three or four or whatever it is.”
The competitive drive among the brothers to outdo each other is undeniable. But for Mt. Lebanon wrestling coach Marc Allemang, their selfless nature sticks out more than their individual skills on the mat.
“As brothers, they are so close,” Allemang said. “They’re constantly trying to make each other better. Kellan comes around a lot now that he’s at Pitt, and that’s nice. Those guys are always pushing each other. They want so much for their brothers, they want so much for their siblings, they almost want it more for their brothers than themselves.”