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Brandon Grapples With Its Claim To Fame: The Streak

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By D'ANN LAWRENCE WHITE | The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 22, 2008

BRANDON - If you happen to have toured the country this summer, you might have taken a detour down Highway 281 into Cawker City, Kan., and had the thrill of seeing the world's largest ball of twine.

Apparently, in 1953, a farmer named Frank Stoeber decided to tidy up around the old homestead. He started rolling spare bits of sisal twine he found in his barn into a ball. Before long, the ball weighed more than 2 1/2 tons.

That didn't leave a heck of a lot of room for his cows. So Stoeber donated the big ball of twine to the town to put on display. Cawker City now sells T-shirts and has billboards posted every quarter mile into town touting its giant ball of twine.

Unfortunately, Cawker City's claim to have the world's largest ball of twine is dubious.
Around the same time Stoeber was rolling his ball, Francis A. Johnson of Darwin, Minn., was rolling one of his own. He claims his ball is bigger. Nobody knows for sure.

Other towns have become celebrated for wacky claims to fame. Georgetown, Ky., has Pete the Talking Crow; Congruity, Pa., has the world's only drive-through strip club; Ashville, Ohio, is home to the world's oldest traffic light; and visitors aren't likely to miss the 6-foot-tall fiberglass sock monkeys in Rockford, Ill.

When the Greater Brandon Chamber of Commerce hired a consulting firm last year to help the community come up with a "brand" for Brandon, we weren't fortunate enough to have a bizarre tourist attraction to help us market our community.

And, to our further dismay, Brandon isn't the birthplace of a U.S. president or controversial poet. No great historic treaty was signed by founder John Brandon. And Lithia Springs is hardly a scene for postcards.

So Catch Your Limit Consulting sent out a survey, asking the community to identify positive aspects of Brandon and qualities that make the community unique.

The online survey had 110 questions. It would have been nice if more residents gave their 2 cents' worth, but the consultants did manage to cajole 302 responses.

According to those 302 people, the top five reasons for living in Brandon are location and accessibility, amenities, housing, proximity to friends and family and feeling a part of the community.

The top 10 issues these residents feel are most important in the community are safety and security, mobility, recreational activities, a family-friendly environment, access to medical care, a trained and educated workforce, job opportunities, the ability to make a positive impact, social activities and entertainment.

About the time the survey results were made public, I came across a couple of old brochures the chamber published in the 1960s to promote Brandon.

They were titled, "Brandon, Florida: Tomorrow's Suburbia Today." In smaller print are the words, "A Beautiful, Enchanting Residential Village." The photos on the brochure hype the fact that Brandon is a mix of old and new, rural and suburb, with small-town flavor and big-city access.

It occurred to me that the things residents valued in the 1960s aren't all that different from what they value today.

While I think we all can agree that Brandon's family-oriented lifestyle and community spirit was and remains its greatest asset, the survey didn't pinpoint our ball of twine, that one thing that makes us unique.

As far as I'm concerned, it's obvious.

There is just one thing that has kept Brandon in the national spotlight year after year — The Streak.
I dare say most of America would never have heard of Brandon, Fla., were it not for Coach Russ Cozart and the Brandon High School wrestling team.

The Streak is way better than a ball of twine or a talking crow. Why aren't we a tourist attraction?

After watching ESPN 2's documentary, "The Streak," on April 29, in which the sports network filmed the team throughout its 2007-08 wrestling season, I was more convinced than ever that Brandon should have T-shirts and signs declaring this to be "Home of The Streak."

Even someone like me who isn't a sports fanatic has to stand up and take notice of an accomplishment of this magnitude. There's been speculation that The Streak might even make the next Guinness Book of World Records.

For those who have been living in a cave, The Streak began 34 years ago under Brandon High wrestling coach Jim Graves, who already shepherded the team to 75 wins when Cozart was recruited to take his place in 1980.

Cozart remembers then-Principal Orlan Briant telling him not to worry if he loses a few matches. Briant said the school was behind him, win or lose.

Cozart wasn't buying it, though. As a college wrestler who tried out for the Olympic team, losing wasn't on his agenda.

The team continued winning. Then, in 1997, when Cozart's team hit its 293rd win, the most consecutive wins by a team in any sport, he knew he was at the peak of his career.

"All three major television stations were shooting live that night," he recalled. The excitement was palpable. Brandon was on the map. How could he top that?

"I knew I'd taken this thing as far as it could go," Cozart said.

Well, Cozart found a way to stretch it a bit further. He decided to host a tournament challenging any team to beat the Brandon wrestlers. High school team after team accepted the challenge and lost against Cozart's warriors during the next five years.

Cozart said he used to toss and turn nights knowing it eventually would end, wondering how he would handle that moment.

That moment came Jan. 5. With 459 wins in a row, the Eagles were defeated by Homestead South Dade, bring The Streak to a conclusion.

Instead of being disappointed, Cozart remembers feeling as if a burden had been lifted from his shoulders.

"I've lived with this thing for 28 years, always knowing that eventually the day would come," he said. "But I'm not ready to hang it up. I still have a passion to lead the Eagles. We're starting a new streak."

As I watched the film of Cozart during that fateful loss, it occurred to me that he and his wrestlers deserve to be memorialized as much for their grace in defeat as for all their heroic wins.
Cozart said he didn't know exactly what he would do at the moment The Streak finally came to an end.

"I thought it had to be something great, amazing, outstanding, something a Roman general would do," he said. "You lead by example."

In the end, he simply ran across the mat and enthusiastically congratulated the opposing coaches and the athletes.

"If you can't bounce back from defeat, you're nobody," Cozart said. "Defeat makes you stronger. Setbacks make you stronger. Our team is stronger than we were that night."

Win or lose, the Brandon wrestling team is a brand the community certainly can be proud to brandish.

Columnist D'Ann Lawrence White can be reached at (813) 657-4524 or dlwhite@tampatrib.com.

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