Brad Wilton started wrestling at 4 years old, and has always been around the MSU wrestling program as he started attending clinics through the university at a young age. He was a part of Spartan Lightning, a youth wrestling club held by MSU. 

Wilton’s family has always been huge MSU fans, and they appreciate all the work that head coach Roger Chandler has done for the program. The family was ecstatic when Wilton committed to Michigan State for wrestling, and they feel like he was well prepared to be successful in the program. 

“The coaching staff is awesome, and we’re very blessed to be involved,” Brad Wilton’s father, Greg said. “We thought — meaning me, my wife, and him — that his best chance to succeed would be to wrestle. (He chose to wrestle at MSU because) he would love to just be green. So far, he’s a redshirt freshman and he’s doing pretty well. We’re pretty proud of him.”

Brad has been preparing to wrestle in college throughout his childhood, and knew MSU was the right choice for him ever since he started attending clinics at the university. He  said he really enjoyed how open everyone was in the wrestling program and how it had a family feel to it. 

“I always came up to Spartan Lightning practices when I was really, really young,” Wilton said. “I’ve always been around the Michigan State program and grew up a Spartan. When it clicked I had the talent to take it to the next level, I just knew I wanted to come to Michigan State and build a strong program.”

Aside from wrestling as a kid, Wilton also was involved with football and fishing, which is an activity that brought him and his dad closer together when he was growing up. Wilton had opportunities to play football and fish competitively in college, but he opted to wrestle instead. Even those activities as a kid made him stronger when it came to the sport he’s loved since a young age. 

“Brad’s a great outdoorsman, he’s a great angler, great fisherman, great hunter,” Greg said. “We’ve had some great memories in the boat also, not just in the stands. We fished in two high school state championships together, and I was a boat captain. ... All that being said, that’s why I think Brad has a ceiling that he can be really successful because he got involved with a lot of other stuff and not just wrestling.”

Wilton felt he was well-prepared to pursue wrestling in college, especially at a school that he grew up loving and dreaming to attend one day. 

“I just knew through high school that I was an above average wrestler and I felt like I had good enough talents to take it to the next level,” Wilton said. “I gained confidence through that and thought, ‘Hey, I can do this and I deserve to be here.’”

With the Mason, Michigan native only being about 20 minutes from home on campus, it provided an opportunity for his mother, Lisa, to take a job within MSU’s College of Music. In the team’s most recent meet against Central Michigan, Wilton clinched the duel against CMU sophomore Landon Pelham in just 15 seconds on the mat. With home not far away, his dad traveled to the meet and was there in the stands to witness it all.

“I never miss a match,” Greg said. “I drove to Penn State, and I’m going to drive to Minnesota. If I can be there, I’ll be there. ... Me and my wife, she’s a big part of it too, as far as support, camera and nutrition. We’ve got one hell of a team here.”

Since Wilton has been at this sport for so long, Greg took time to reflect on some of the proudest moments he’s experienced in his son’s wrestling career so far. 

“One of my proudest moments was to watch him get up on that Michigan State platform and get his first Big Ten win,” Greg said. “Also, that Illinois win was a really high moment for us. That’s all that hard work and dedication and it pays off with having an opportunity to go do that. I coached him all his life too, but just to watch him get up front up there and get his hand raised in the toughest conference in the country is badass.”

Brad Wilton and the rest of the Spartan wrestling team will travel to Minneapolis to compete in the Big Ten Championships March 9.