Family tradition
Clinton’s Leavell hopes to ‘pin’ his name on Tennessee Wrestling
Clinton sophomore wrestler Deameion Leavell is a two- sport athlete for the Dragons. His wrestling roots run deep as his father, Dragons wrestling Assistant Coach Damien Leavell, won a state championship for Christian County High School in Kentucky in 1999. (photo:Tony Cox )
Leavell, a sophomore and two-sport athlete at Clinton High School, comes from a family that has deep athletic roots in wrestling.
Leavell’s father, Damien, was a Kentucky state champion in 1999, and other members of the family also excelled on the mats.
Now Deameion wants to make his mark in the sport.
“I want to win a state championship,” he said. “Everybody in my family has wrestled. I’m just working on getting better.
“I like wrestling and I’ve wrestled since I was a little kid, and I always looked up to the wrestlers in my family.”
As a freshman in Kentucky last season, Deameion placed seventh in the Bluegrass State, a tough feat. Unlike Tennessee, the Kentucky state tournament isn’t broken down by classes. It’s an open tournament.
“In Kentucky, you don’t have classifications; everybody wrestles everybody,” Damien Leavell said.
During the wrestling offseason, Damien decided that if his son was going to maximize his success on the football field, the family was going to have to relocate.
“We moved for football,” he said. “It was just one of those sacrifices that you had to make for your family.
“Kentucky is a basketball state, and the football is much better in Tennessee,
“We weren’t sure whether he would wrestle, but he decided that he wanted to.”
Damien, a lifelong educator, decided to move to Clinton due to his acquaintance with Dragons head football Coach Darell Keith.
“We had a few different options,” Damien said. “And I wanted to go where I knew somebody, and I knew Coach Keith,
Keith and Clinton High wrestling Coach Channing McDonald are certainly glad to have both father and son wearing the orange and black of the Dragons.
During his first season on the gridiron, Deameion Leavell played a key role in CHS’s success. The Dragons finished 6-7 in 2023. They won five of their last six games and eliminated longtime rival and Region 3-5A champion Oak Ridge in the second round of the state playoffs.
Clinton advanced to the state quarterfinals for the first time since the early 1990s.
Deameion, upon his arrival to the Clinton, wasted little time making his presence felt on the gridiron.
A versatile player, he can play quarterback, defensive back and wide receiver. Deameion also returns kicks, and he truly flourished on special teams as the region’s coaches named him Returner of the Year when they meted out their postseason awards.
As fall turned to winter, Deameion found his place in the wrestling room. He competes in the 165-pound weight class. And he said he enjoys wrestling under his father’s watch.
“That’s great because you have a state champion coach,” Deameion said of his father.
McDonald also has high praise for his new assistant coach.
“Having Damien is a big help; he makes my job so much easier,” McDonald said.
Damien will coach anyone who wants to compete and is willing to work. He’s emerged as both the boys and girls coach.
“I coach everybody,” he said.
Both father and son are happy to be in Clinton, where the community and the students support the CHS athletes.
“It’s a lot different here than it is in Kentucky,” Deameion said. “And I love it.”
Damien also noticed that the students support the athletes in East Tennessee.
“It’s in a small town, and the community and the students really come out and support the kids,” he said. “My wife and I went to a few basketball games because I know the kids.
“I credit (sportswriters and other media) because they really promote sports here,” he said. “My family back home was able to watch and listen to some of the football games. In Kentucky, they support the kids, but it’s nothing like this.”
The Leavell family now resides in Clinton, but Damien hasn’t abandoned his roots, which run deep in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
“We still have our house and everything up there; I’m still young,” Damien said. “But as I’ve gotten older, I realize how nice it is to have another hometown, another place that you can go.”