Canon-McMillan’s Furman named MVP
Brendan Furman stands in front of the Canon-McMillan Wall of Fame that displays the names of previous state wrestling champions the school has produced. The senior will fill 43rd slot. The school’s 29th state winner and only the second heavyweight to win a PIAA title for the Big Macs.
Brendan Furman not only won a PIAA title, he led Canon-McMillan to a section banner and a runner-up showing as a team in the WPIAL.
Brendan Furman displays the gold medal he captured for winning a PIAA wrestling championship.
Brendan Furman gazes at the Wall of Champions in the Canon-McMillan High School wrestling room, and immediately, emotions overcome the senior as he realizes his name will soon appear on the next plaque.
“Wow,” he said. “Right there,” he pointed to the 42nd spot reserved for the school’s 29th PIAA winner. “Four years in this room I’ve wondered if I would ever get up here. And to come back some day and see my name and picture up there will be great. For me, it will always be a reminder that it showed that I can achieve something difficult if I put my mind to it.”
Wrestling, indeed, has always been a challenge for Furman, who headlines The Almanac’s All-Star team as MVP. In fact, only five years ago, he was winless.
After his parents divorced, he moved from Squirrel Hill into the school district and started wrestling in the seventh grade. “Mom’s rule,” said the son of Rachel and Chris Furman. “She told me I had to be involved in a sport. It didn’t matter what I did.
“So, I picked the sport because I thought it was cool. I thought it was like WWE. What a nasty surprise,” he exclaimed.
Furman discovered freestyle wrestling was definitely different and hardly cool. During his first year, Furman lost all 10 of his matches. “Pins,” he sighed. “All of them. I never left the mat without being pinned and flat on my back.”
Something inside of Furman, however, encouraged him to not give up.
“I could go in two directions,” he explained. “I could either quit or try harder.”
Hours of off-season work, toil in the weight and mat rooms at school and participation in national cadet freestyle wrestling competitions, produced better results.
Furman finished his scholastic career with a 137-33 record, complete with four section titles and one WPIAL championship.
“I was committed,” Furman said, “but nothing was as important to me than my senior year. I wanted (a state title).”
Furman continued to lay the groundwork for this PIAA run. He ramped up his workouts with the Pitt Wrestling Club, training with challenging partners such as Panther standouts: Ryan Solomon, Ryan Tomei and Dan Kornberg. He competed in and won the Super 32 Tournament prior to start of his senior season. Furman kicked off the 2016-17 campaign with a victory in the Powerade Championships. After helping the Big Macs to a runner-up trophy in the WPIAL team competition, he embarked on his road to Hershey.
After winning the sectional, district and regional tournaments, Furman posted pins in his first two state matches at the Giant Center before scoring hard-fought decisions in his final two bouts to capture the PIAA title. For the championship, Furman had to face Isaac Reid from Kiski. It was the fifth meeting between the pair, with Furman winning all the encounters, including a 5-3 victory in the state heavyweight final.
Of the state title, Furman said, “It was certainly the hardest thing to get but it was worth it. All the hard work done in the dark,” he noted of the dim practice room tucked away in the bowels of the high school, “was brought to the light.”
After an appearance in the Pennsylvania Wrestling Classic to be held March 25 at the University of Pittsburgh’s Fitzgerald Field House, Furman hopes to shed his light upon the program at Cornell University where he will major in industrial labor relations while wrestling for the Big Red. Furman, who pulled down a 4.0 GPA during the same semester as the wrestling season, had offers from the United States Military Academy, University of Virginia, Pitt and Penn.
“My goal is to be a national champion in college and possibly compete in the Olympics. If I’m good enough,” he added quickly. “I’ll have to work hard but then again I have never shied away from hard work.”