When he was in third grade, Chris Gerhard remembered when he wanted to join the Boy Scouts.

His father, Ernie, thought otherwise.

“I came home from school and was excited about joining the Boy Scouts,” recalled Gerhard. “He told me that I wasn’t joining the Boy Scouts, but I was wrestling instead.

“That night, he dragged me and my brother Matt down to see John Stofko, who was the Midget wrestling coach. After I got started, I was really on the fence about it. I didn’t like guys grabbing and throwing me around. Once I got to high school, it was different.”

Despite an unorthodox beginning, Gerhard took the nod as a youngster and went on to became a state champion for the Rough Riders in the 145-pound bracket in 1982.

With both Jaryn Hartranft and Adam Reinhard headed to states this weekend, Gerhard’s memories of his accomplishment is naturally kindled.

“I still think back of when it happened for me,” stated Gerhard, who is an assistant principal at the high school. “It was a great time for me and my teammates. This is a fun time of year for anyone involved with wrestling.”

Gerhard has continued to reminisce with former teammates Jeff Miller and Barry Lovelace, both of whom finished fifth and sixth respectively at states the same year. The Roughies finished second as a team in 1982 behind Danville under then head coach Jim Angeline.

His brother, Matt, won four gold medals, but he has been sidelined with medical issues.

“We had a good team, and we wrestled Nazareth, Parkland, and Northampton,” said Gerhard. “My brother (Matt) was an integral part of the team. We didn’t have district duals back then. We were a bunch of guys who grew up together and had a lot of fun.”

The previous year, Gerhard took third in states, and it proved to be all the motivation he needed. It was a time when the optics of the sport were certainly different.

“That’s what drove me the next year,” stressed Gerhard. “I was determined to be a state champion. I just kept pushing along the way.

“It was so much different back then. We had a wrestling room in the back of the field house with just mats on the floor. The techniques are different today, and the training and nutrition aspects are 15 to 20 times better.”

Gerhard noted the town’s victory parade for the individuals and the team when they returned from Hershey.

“They had us on the fire trucks from one side of Catty to the other,” he said. “It was pretty neat. The principal and his wife, who lived up the street, came down and decorated our house. Everybody was into it.”

Thus emerged the legend of the seven gold medals on Kurtz Street.

“At one time, we had seven gold medal winners on the street,” said Gerhard. “I won one, my brother would win four, Dave Troxell got one for being a coach on the baseball team, and Chris Snyder had one for being on the girls’ basketball team.”

Gerhard received a scholarship offer for wrestling from the University of Kentucky, but he refused it to concentrate his efforts on football, his primary sport. He attended Fork Union Military Academy before enrolling in the education program at East Stroudsburg University, also where he was a four-year starter as a defensive back and a Little All-America player.

From there, Gerhard was a head football coach at Nazareth, Northampton and Catty.

“Football really was my sport,” said Gerhard. “I liked wrestling because I could lift and run to stay in shape. But I never did anything with wrestling in the offseasons.

“Once I started, I didn’t think I would get that far.”

Thirty-eight years later, Gerhard still can thank the Boy Scouts.