Brian Fox and Jay Snow want to be clear on one thing: Mississippi has sanctioned high school wrestling. 

They also want to be clear on this: The Mississippi School for the Blind has the longest-running wrestling program in the state.

Now we can start digging into what's going on here.

Snow is the head coach at Ocean Springs High School. Fox is the president of the Mississippi Wrestling Foundation. Together, they plan to explore the final frontier of American high school wrestling. 

The wording in the Mississippi High School Activities Association (MHSAA) handbook allows for boys and girls to participate in wrestling. It’s only five sentences, but it’s a start. There were a handful of teams in 1972 but by 1986 wrestling went away. 

In 2008, Ocean Springs resurrected wrestling and was the only program in the state until this year. Snow took his teams to Florida, Louisiana, and Alabama for competition since they are in close proximity. 

Mississippi may allow high school wrestling but it remains the only state that does not offer a sanctioned high school state wrestling championship of any kind. That could change in the next two years. 

This year, the Mississippi Wrestling Foundation hosted a state championship. Nine teams participated with Ocean Springs hammering the field. Nine girls and 150 boys wrestled in the inaugural event. 

How did this materialize? Brian Fox and Cody Solari finally found each other.

Solari, a former wrestler from Sergeant Bluff, Iowa, was stationed at the Air Force base near Ocean Springs, which is in the southern part of the state. He wanted to get involved but was surprised that wrestling was virtually non-existent before he connected with Snow. 

Fox was a mediocre wrestler from Columbus, Ohio, who wrestled for one year at Baldwin Wallace University. He lives in Tupelo (northern Mississippi) where his family owns multiple car dealerships in multiple states. 

Fox formed the Mississippi Wrestling Federation because he wanted to see wrestling grow. A month prior, Solari created the Mississippi Wrestling Foundation for the same reason. 

Both had the same goal so they merged the organizations and adopted the Mississippi Wrestling Foundation name. 

The foundation began spreading the message of wrestling in Mississippi. Fox got on the radio. He got on television. He went to a flea market and put a 10 x 10 wrestling mat down and offered $20 to anyone who could take him down. 

Anything to bring awareness. 

“We got connected with people who had wrestling experience,” Fox said. “We started to put together a board of people for our organization. We wanted to work on this. I always wanted to get involved after I graduated so I had to create that opportunity here.”

Brian Fox is the driving force behind a sanctioned state wrestling championship in Mississippi.

A donor offered to purchase mats for the first 10 schools that fielded a team. The foundation offered coaching assistance since they have a network of volunteers.

The end game is to get the MHSAA to sanction a high school state wrestling championship. Around 20 schools are expected to field a team next season — maybe 30. 

“We’ve had tremendous interest and the tide is rising for the sport of wrestling here,” Fox said. “People are more excited about it when they get involved since there’s nothing like this sport. They don’t understand it until they experience it. Now they’re experiencing it. It’s really catching fire. That’s where we’re at right now.”

The MHSAA handbook says half the schools in the state must offer wrestling for a sanctioned tournament, but the director has indicated that the association will consider it if 30 schools participate. It’s a done deal if they reach 50.

That means all 50 states would have an end-of-the-year sanctioned high school wrestling championship and Mississippi will no longer be the answer to an undesirable trivia question.

It also means that kids throughout Mississippi can learn the unique values that only wrestling can teach. 

“For the most part, we’ve had a lot of positive enthusiasm around wrestling,” Snow said. “Mississippi is kind of the last in everything. The worst in obesity. The last in reading. Our numbers are pretty bad. Wrestling is something, I think, that is going to really help the underprivileged kids in Mississippi and give them another avenue to higher education and improve their lives. I think there’s a huge potential for that here.”

If things go well, Fox has a grand plan. He wants to build a multi-million dollar facility in 10 years and hire three-time World champion Lee Kemp to be the head coach.

“Lee’s adopted parents are from Mississippi,” Fox said. “I hope it strikes a chord with him one day.”