Grappler Brady Wicklund at his private gym on Eighth Street East on Monday, Aug. 15, 2022. (Robbi Pengelly/Index-Tribune)

Brady Wicklund, fighter and Sonoma farmer, heads to Grappling World Championships in Spain

CHASE HUNTER

INDEX-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

August 19, 2022

For fighters, there’s often a mindset of “eat or be eaten,” USA Team Grappler Brady “Copper Head” Wicklund said. But that changed for him when he began to grow his own food on a farm.

Wicklund, 31, fuels his rigorous training schedule with food from his garden on Watmaugh Road, while readying himself to travel to Pontevedra, Spain for the United World Wrestling’s Grappling World Championships between Oct. 12 and 15.

“Back when I was 18, 19 years old, I was kind of a hellraiser and not doing much for society, you know. I went to jail one time for getting in fights,” Wicklund said. “And here we are farming and getting people food and training guys.”

He’s just finished working on his farm and he’s still shirtless, his upper body covered only by dark sunglasses, a black baseball cap and a smattering of tattoos.

Just a freckled-faced kid

“I’ve always had a chip on my shoulder. I was bullied a lot in school when I was younger... I was a redheaded freckle-faced kid and I used to be a little overweight,” Wicklund said. “I wasn't fat, but I definitely ran with the athletic crowd and I was the least athletic out of all of them.”

The young Wicklund began wrestling in middle school under the tutelage of Sonoma wrestling legends Roger “Deets” Winslow and Marty Cline, he said. Winslow showed him the basics of the sport. He was like a second father figure to the young Wicklund whose own father was working through issues with alcoholism.

“I didn't really have that father figure to keep me in line,” Wicklund said. “I wasn’t the best student in school — I was in love with agriculture and skipping class to go work with my steers.”

Wicklund was involved in the 4-H and Future Farmers of America programs at Modesto Community College, even raising a grand champion steer for the Sonoma County Fair in 2009. While his steer was the cream of the crop, Wicklund was “not a standout wrestler” himself, at least not yet.

He was a medalist for the North Coast Sectionals and he competed in the state championships in 2009; but only briefly.

An unfortunate draw placed him against Morgan McIntosh in the first round of the tournament — “I still remember the kid's name” — who won the state championship and eventually became a two-time All-American for Penn State University.

Upon graduating high school, amid souring relations between he and his parents, Wicklund said he faced an ultimatum from his mother: Stop fighting and remain housed, or keep fighting and move out.

Wicklund chose to fight.

Homeless, far from hopeless

In a $600, semi-reliable Jeep Cherokee on Skaggs Island Road near San Pablo Bay, Wicklund slept between days of traveling to Santa Rosa Junior College to train on mats in their wrestling gym.

During the first week of the season, the SRJC’s squad had a “wrestle off” between members of the team who were training to join the reality mixed martial arts TV show the “Ultimate Fighter.” Wicklund beat MMA fighter Dominic “Sho Nuff” Waters, he said, making him realize he’s “not some high school wrestler anymore.”

The next five years were a struggle and a blur.

A friend was “stacking up” money from crab fishing, so Wicklund handed out his number on the docks until he found a spot with one of America’s deadliest jobs.

“I was like, ‘Man, I'm so broke. I'll go out to the middle of the ocean,’ even though I didn't know what I was doing,” Wicklund said.

When he wasn’t at sea, he was at the NorCal Fighting Alliance gym founded by Dave Terrell. He trained “religiously” five and six times a week, doing different types of odd jobs to pay for the gym fee.

“I couldn't afford the monthly fee of the gym, but I could make 20 bucks a day doing some sort of side job,” Wicklund said. “Whatever it was, crab fishing or gardening... I worked for an ex wrestling coach for a long time and he put a lot of skills in my hand to grow food.”

The ex-wrestling coach was Marty Cline of Wine Country Wrestling. Wicklund said he would “still be starving if not for him.”

Wicklund began delivering Community Supported Agriculture boxes. When the deliveries grew beyond Wicklund’s capabilities alone, Sonoma Valley entrepreneur Bill Manzoni offered his property as a place for Wicklund to sell his food.

A foundation had formed between NorCal Fighting Alliance gym and Wicklund’s agriculture business, which became a turning point in Wicklund’s transformation into an preeminent fighter.

“I've hooked up with an elite team with Dave,” Wicklund said. “It started to really seal in my mind that I can do this and win in tournaments. I started winning all the local tournaments around, I've collected every belt and in the Bay Area, essentially.”

He entered tournaments for jujitsu by the Bay, the North American Grappling Association fights and Super Fights. Yet it became difficult to find anyone willing to face him. Wicklund’s focus on reaching the heights in the fighting world had caused him to become selfish to his own aspirations.

“I was just inviting everybody, ‘Come train with me, come train with me’ on the phone every day. ‘Hey, come train,’ to 300 pound dudes... that have never worked out a day in my life,” Wicklund said. “I just needed bodies around me.”

Feeding the Fighter

At some point the pain caused by injuries from being a fighter begin to linger in one’s body.

Broken elbows from busted arms bars turn into scars, a tooth repaired from a knock-out delivered by Kaleio Romero looks off-white, and hands appear like the gnarled roots of trees, with scabs clinging to broken knuckles.

Many times, the injuries serve as a reminder of the losses.

“I can’t even remember half the fights I’ve won,” Wicklund said. “Most of the ones that I’ve lost, I could tell you exactly what happened in every single one. That’s what happens, it sticks in your mind like that.”

It was after the 559 fights in Visalia near Fresno that “threw a monkey wrench in my world,” Wicklund said. He had gone to a concert at Cache Creek Casino, east of Sacramento. The venue was at a vineyard overhanging a cliff. He needed to use the restroom after the concert, but the port-o-potties were all full.

“It was dark and it was the end of the concert. I was like, ‘Man, I'm in a vineyard. I grew up on a farm...I’m going to go pee off in the vineyard,’” Wicklund remembers thinking. “And that was probably the worst-best mistake I've ever made.”

Wicklund walked off the edge of a cliff, estimating the drop to be 20 feet. He was left bleeding at the bottom of the ravine, adding that he thought he was hallucinating.

“I thought I saw somebody up on the top (of the cliff). And I was like, ‘Hey, can I get some help?’ And the guy disappeared. I don't know if he was actually there or I was seeing the Reaper,” Wicklund said. “I was able to think to myself, ‘I can't like let my mom know I walked off a cliff and died.’”

The experience made Wicklund reflect on the selfish mindset he’d taken on in training, making sure he always put himself first without regard for his opponents or sparring partners.

“I don't want to say a narcissist, but like that's a good word for it because when you're fighting you're you only care about yourself,” Wicklund said. “Next thing you know, nobody around you wants to train with you. You could walk off a cliff and basically die and nobody's gonna care.”

The fall would require 11 stitches in his mouth and 14 down the side of his face, plus the tooth that was knocked into his mouth. Still, the experience checked his ego and made him refocus on supporting his community of fighters and farmers.

The eggs, cucumbers, squash, and tomatoes from the farm on Stage Gulch Road are brought to farmers markets and his fighters, providing a natural alternative to the non-fresh food and unripe food found in grocery stores, Wicklund said.

“Just this last month, we turned a profit on the gym... It's paying for itself now, and the garden’s bringing food into them. Just seeing the change in their demeanor and their physique is so motivating to keep doing this,” Wicklund said.

He had a training session later that Friday afternoon. But on a wooden bench with the sun beating down, he was citing off the state of his crops. It’s been a cold year for tomatoes, he said. Many of them have taken months for them to grow and mature.

But the tomatoes, like himself, seem to have finally ripened.

“I couldn't afford to eat right. I was broke,” Wicklund said. “I was training full time and traveling all over, trying to chase this dream that finally has come to fruition.”

Contact Chase Hunter at chase.hunter@sonomanews.com and follow @Chase_HunterB on Twitter.

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