One of Oceana’s greatest wrestling coaches will receive the state’s highest wrestling honor next month when former Hesperia and Fremont head coach Craig Zeerip is inducted into the Michigan Wrestling Association Hall of Fame.
Zeerip will join another former Panthers’ coach, longtime colleague Doug Baird, in the Hall during its Nov. 8 induction ceremony at the Cornerstone University Gainey Conference Center. Tickets to the Hall of Fame banquet are $50 and are available until Oct. 24 by visiting cognitoforms.com/MichiganWrestlingAssociation/MWAHallofFameBanquetTicketOrder2025.
“I think it’s a really humbling award from all your peers after spending a lot of time in wrestling,” Zeerip said, saying he found out he was to be inducted in May. “It’s great to be recognized.”
Craig Zeerip grew up on the family farm, Heritage Farms, which the family still owns and operates. He was talked into starting his wrestling career by his youth pastor growing up, Frank Dobos, himself a former wrestler at Ashland University in Ohio. Zeerip, who said his friendship with Dobos has endured to this day, “jumped in with both feet” once he found he enjoyed the sport.
“I liked the individual aspect, working as hard as you can and seeing what you get,” Zeerip said.
Zeerip got quite a lot, starring at Fremont in high school and earning a collegiate spot at Ohio State University, where he was a letterwinner. After his on-mat career was over, Zeerip wanted to go into coaching, so he returned to Fremont and spent a couple of years learning the ropes from Guy Redinger.
Zeerip’s work as a Packers’ coach drew the attention of the late Dan Homan, who was stepping down as Hesperia wrestling coach after 12 years at the helm - he would continue coaching the Panthers’ football and softball teams for many years after - and wanted Zeerip to replace him. He helped mentor Zeerip as a young head coach.
It was a partnership that produced immediate success. In Zeerip’s first season, 1990-91, the Panthers, despite only having 19 athletes on the roster, made it all the way to the state semifinals before falling to eventual runner-up Pine River by just one point, 31-30. With a young roster the next season, Zeerip’s team was much less experienced, but the Panthers exacted some revenge on the Bucks by defeating them in the regional tournament, ultimately bowing out in the quarterfinals to eventual runner-up Shepherd.
“From then on, Hesperia had such great tradition with so many people and families helping,” Zeerip said. “We had so much success, and it was humbling to see what everyone put into it.”
Hesperia enjoyed another great run of success under Zeerip starting in 1996, winning four straight regional titles. Capping that run was a trip to the 1999 state finals match, where the Panthers lost by just one point to Whittemore-Prescott, 33-32.
In 2004, Zeerip swapped spots with Baird, with the latter taking over as head coach while Zeerip became an assistant. Zeerip’s sons - Justin, Brandon and Collin - were about to enter high school, and Zeerip becoming an assistant enabled him to work more closely with them than he could as the varsity head coach.
Unbeknownst to most of the state, the three brothers were about to embark on three of the greatest careers in MHSAA history. Justin, the oldest, went an unbelievable 260-0 in his high school career, setting state records for career wins and pins, and Brandon and Collin also ranked in the top 10 all-time in wins in the state as of this February.
The trio went on to combine for nine individual state championships in their careers. On top of that, Brandon and Collin were part of the Panthers’ 2008 state champion squad, and Justin ran for the state champion 2006 Hesperia cross-country team. All three wrestled, ironically enough given the family’s Buckeye roots, at the University of Michigan.
Justin said he’s thrilled his dad is being inducted into the Hall of Fame and has many great memories of being “a coach’s kid.” Justin is himself coaching now; he and Collin took over the Whitehall program in 2018-19, and Justin remains the varsity coach. Like his dad, Justin has enjoyed great success, leading the Vikings to six regional titles and three state runner-up finishes in seven seasons to date.
“It was just really fun for me to grow up with a dad as a coach and go to different tournaments and competitions,” Justin said. “It was neat to see him devoted to wrestlers and develop relationships with them and help them achieve their goals on and off the mat. It was cool to see wrestlers, over time, graduate high school and go to college or go into their careers and come back and stop by the farm to check in with him.”
Justin said he got into coaching in large part because of that time spent with his father, and he continues to seek advice from Craig when needed.
“My dad taught me a lot about building relationships with kids, making those connections,” Justin said. “Each kid is different, so you try to push them to their limits, but you try to have fun with it and turn wrestling and sports into life lessons about working hard and how different things apply to different areas of your life.”
It was at Whitehall that Justin and his brother got the rare opportunity to coach against their father, Craig, who had since taken over at Fremont. The Packers reached out to Zeerip prior to the 2013-14 season for help increasing participation in their program; the team had only six wrestlers at the time. Zeerip successfully built up the program to the point where it won back-to-back regional titles in 2021 and 2022, and the following season, Fremont joined the West Michigan Conference, where Whitehall competes. That meant father and sons would face off.
“We’d talk with our dad and we had an idea about his team,” Justin said. “When you go in and compete against them, it felt a little weird, but it was fun at the same time to have our teams wrestle each other. You definitely felt a lot different than any other dual because that’s your blood, your dad, coaching across the way from you.”
Craig stepped down as Fremont coach after the 2022-23 season, commuting back and forth to Arizona to help his father David take care of his mother Mary, who was suffering from dementia at the time. She passed away in August 2024. Craig still helps his dad while working remotely to help with the farm and said he’d like to get David back to Michigan at some point.
Like any great coach, Zeerip knows he didn’t do it alone. More important than anyone else, of course, are his family - wife Susan, his sons, and daughter Lauren, a star Hesperia athlete in her own right in basketball, cross-country and track (she helped the girls cross team to two state championships). The family has 12 grandchildren now, plus another on the way.
“My wife has been a big help all these years,” Zeerip said. “She’s like a coach right by my side and I can’t say enough about the great things she did.”
Fellow coaches have been part of Zeerip’s journey, too - Rich Brimmer, another former Hesperia coach, and wife Dora; Jeff Thome, who coached with Zeerip at Hesperia and Fremont, and his wife Barb; Baird, Zeerip’s longtime colleague; fellow 2025 inductees Tim Jones, the longtime Pine River coach, and Jack Richardson of Eaton Rapids and Grandville; Dennis Paquette of Bangor; Don Rinehart of Holton and Rockford; and more.
Others Zeerip felt deserved mention were Dr. Christopher Hudson; the Breuker family; the Slinkard family; and Tee Ward, the Packers’ most accomplished wrestler under Zeerip.
It’s safe to say wrestling had a profoundly positive impact on Zeerip’s life - on and maybe especially off the mat.
“It’s just been a super time,” Zeerip said. “You hit some bumps in the road, but overall we’ve been very blessed with success, and I’m so proud of so many kids for doing well academically and athletically. Wrestling really helps kids learn responsibility and to go to work and accomplish something. You have to go out there by yourself, work hard and good things will happen.”
