Cody Thorn
When Cody Johnston left Rockwall to return to Missouri, he wanted to make sure the program was in good hands.
He had turned the Yellowjackets into a contender in 6A during his time there.
Johnston called Allen girls wrestling coach Josh Brining to gauge the interest.
“Cody and Chase (Brennan, assistant coach) did a phenomenal job of building up that program,” Brining said “Cody gave me a call and asked if I could ever be interested in leaving and it kind of went from there.”
Brining comes to Rockwall from Allen, where he saw success as the girls’ head coach and as an assistant coach for the boys.
He led the girls to four straight 6A titles and coached one of the best wrestlers in UIL history in Jasmine Robinson, a four-time state champion.
He will guide both programs in Rockwall this year, but there are plans to hire a girls’ coach for the 2025-26 season.
The Yellowjackets boys took fifth place this past year at the UIL finals — the third straight year with a top-10 finish. The girls’ program took 10th place in 6A this past February.
Brining said there were a lot of things that drew him to look into the position. The school district offers middle school wrestling and there’s Apex Grappling Academy and Ranger-47 Wrestling Club are both nearby.
“That’s a big part of having a successful program, you need good clubs and you need middle school wrestling and you need a history of success or you have to build a history of success,” Brining said. “If you have build it, you need willing parents and you need families that are going to invest in the future and be invested in the children. So, Rockwall had all of those things.”
His new team has had a good deal of success this summer. Dominic Wilson became the school’s first-ever national champion at Fargo and was a double All-American. Cody Savage was also a double All-American at Fargo and Hunter Gordon lost in the blood round.
“We have some good talent here,” said Brining, who will be assisted by Baylor Steward, who wrestled at Utah Valley University. The search for another assistant coach is still ongoing, the head coach said.
He left a program that was solid in both boys and girls. The boys had 14 won state titles in a row until this year.
Brining said he has learned a lot working under Allen coach Jerry Best, who hired him eight years ago. He said he learned a lot watching Best run a nationally-elite program.
“I got to observe a legend and work under a legend, and I’m looking to apply all the things that I’ve learned coaching at Allen and being the girls head coach,” Brining said. “I want to see if I can just take the work that Cody and Chase did here and move it forward. It takes a long time to build a program and I think they really moved the program along and that’s going to help us get to where we want to be a little quicker. I’m excited for a new challenge … new school, new kids. I’m the lead, so that’s exciting to try to learn.”
Brining coached at McKinney Christian and Dallas Adamson before coming to Allen. He began with the middle school program and helped build the numbers for the girls’ high school program.
He was the head coach for the last two titles, though he played a big role in all four of the champions for the girls’ programs.
Many of the standout names like Robinson, Kailin Sebert, Grace Romans and Esther Peters wrestled for Brining since they were in seventh grade.
“You put your heart and soul into something, you want to leave it in good standings for the next coach,” Brining said “I think he could do a great job over there and keep it going.”
Moses Menendez was hired as the new girls’ coach at Allen, coming over from Killeen Harker Heights.
“I appreciate my time at Allen and Coach Best is a good friend of mine and I appreciate everything he did for me at Allen,” Brining said. “It’s a new chapter. I’m a Yellowjacket now. That’s my team and my squad. I’m grateful for my time at Allen, but I’m very grateful to be at Rockwell and be a Yellowjacket now.”
