Ulrich quickly hired as new Greyhounds wrestling coach
On Tuesday morning, Jones County High School was without a head wrestling coach. A quick phone call changed that for a Greyhounds program coming off its best-ever finish in the state traditional meet as well having an individual state champion for the first time since 2016.
Adam Gillhouse was approved Monday night at the Jones County School System’s Board of Education Meeting for the new Director of Communications role with the school system. As a result, the position of head wrestling coach was open, but it didn’t take long to find the newest leader of JCHS wrestling as Bryan Ulrich was announced as head coach Wednesday morning.
“It’s been exciting. Adam took that job with the district office, and that’s great for him, he’s earned that opportunity,” Ulrich said. “This has been something we kind of talked about in the past but didn’t know if and when it was going to come.
Now that the opportunity is here, I am super excited.”
For Jones County Athletics Director Charles David, the decision was a cinch.
“When we found out that Coach Gillhouse was resigning, it took me less than 30 seconds to pull that trigger,” David said. “I called Coach Ulrich to see if he was interested.”
Ulrich is plenty familiar to both Jones County wrestlers and those close to the program, having led the middle school program since 2022. Now, he’ll coach a group of wrestlers, many of which he already knows from those middle school days.
“It was an obvious choice for me.
Having been with the program at the middle school level, I have already coached most of the kids in the high school program,” Ulrich said. “Plus, my son is moving up to high school. It’s a blessing on so many fronts.”
But the upside goes beyond that for the Greyhounds wrestling program. In Ulrich, they’ll have a rarity when it comes to wrestling coaches. With him having coached most of the high school wrestlers already, Ulrich will be able to coach some wrestlers for six or seven seasons.
“Most of the time for a high school coach, you are lucky to get them for maybe four years. For me, I will get them for seven years. That’s irreplaceable,” Ulrich said. “You get to watch them grow up and grow into young men. You get them as sixth graders and see them graduate and make life choices, go into college or into work. It’s exciting to see that.
“It’s pretty unbelievable to be able to spend this much time with the same group.”
And that connection has not stopped with those wrestlers moving up to the high school level.
During tournament settings when multiple coaches are needed with multiple Greyhounds wrestlers on the mats, a handful of other coaches are on hand to help lend expertise during individual matches, and Ulrich has been among them.
“He knows the freshmen, upcoming freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. He’s had them all down in middle school,” David said. “It’ll be almost seamless for what he’ll do because he knows the kids from having them before. It’ll be easy for him to just step in.”
Now, a coach who also has previous experience at the high school level in Tennessee and Arizona will head up the Greyhounds’ program.
“It was a no-brainer. We’ve got a guy who has high school experience, and he’s built a great program down at the middle school level,” David said. “It was easy because I was a middle school athletic director and I had dealings with him, and everything was 100 percent professional.
Everything was on-point and very organized.”
