Seven sports. Four years. Nearly double the weight. A state quarterfinal run. Few athletes at Seattle Prep have taken a path as unconventional as senior Stephen Kassab, and even fewer have changed as dramatically along the way.
Kassab didn’t arrive as a standout athlete, in fact, he didn’t even arrive with a plan. As a freshman, he weighed just 130 pounds and, like many new students, followed a familiar route: cross country. He didn’t hate it, but something felt off to the young man. “I liked the team, but I knew running wasn’t where my passion was,” Kassab said. So, instead of settling, he started searching.
That winter, while his teammates kept running, Kassab tried crew. The change didn’t last long. “It was cold, wet, and honestly just boring,” he said. It didn’t take him long to move on.
Finally, in the winter of his sophomore year, something sparked. Wrestling. Seattle Prep didn’t have a team, but that wasn’t going to stop him, Kassab played for Nathan Hale instead. He was hooked from the start, but results didn’t come easily. He won just two JV matches that season, often feeling outclassed by kids who had been doing this for years. “I was intimidated by their size and unfazed attitude,” he said. “They were killers.”
For a lot of athletes, that would’ve been the end of their sports journey. But for Kassab, it was only the beginning. Instead of backing away, he leaned in. “In the spring, all I did was freestyle wrestling,” he said. “And I improved a lot.”
At the same time, something else was changing, physically and mentally. Kassab began taking strength and conditioning seriously. Under the guidance of Coach Maul, he started lifting consistently, and his body responded. “It wasn’t even intentional,” Kassab said. “I just started lifting, got way hungrier, and the weight came with it.”
That growth didn’t go unnoticed. When Coach Maul called him into his office, Kassab wasn’t sure what to expect. “I thought I was in trouble at first,” he said. “Then I was excited when I realized he wanted me to play football.” Even with Maul’s encouragement, the transition to football wasn’t automatic. His parents were hesitant. “At first they weren’t sure,” Kassab said. “But after Coach Maul talked to them, they were more open to it.”
Football, like wrestling, didn’t come naturally. Kassab had to fight through the same early struggles, learning technique, adjusting to the physicality, and competing against players who had been doing it for years.
But this time, something was different: he knew what to expect. Up to that point, every sport he had tried demanded an entirely new skill set, making it hard to build momentum. Football, though, felt familiar; like wrestling, it rewarded explosiveness, leverage, and physical toughness.
Even more “There was a brotherhood from day one in football,” Kassab said. “And wrestling just pushed you mentally in a different way.”
However, it almost didn’t get to that point. In week five of the football season, Kassab went to make a block and caught his opponent at a bad angle. He felt it immediately. A partial ACL tear, painful enough to end his season on the field, but not severe enough to keep him off the mat. When wrestling season started, he was back. “I could still wrestle,” he said. “So I did.”
Over time, the pieces came together. The once undersized freshman grew into a 260-pound athlete. The beginner became a competitor, and eventually, Kassab was winning.
By his senior year, he went undefeated in regular season wrestling meets and was seeded into the top 7 heading into the postseason. He made a deep run to the state quarterfinals; just one match away from advancing further.
“I was up 6–1,” Kassab said. “I should’ve won.” He’d taken his opponent down twice in the first period. But then fatigue set in. The kind that starts in your legs and works its way into your decisions. He made one wrong move, and all 285 pounds of his opponent came crashing down on him. And just like that, it was over. The postseason. His high school career. Gone in a single fall.
While there’s still a sense of unfinished business, it doesn’t define his story. What defines Kassab’s journey is the willingness to start over, again and again. Looking back, he sees the difference clearly. “I didn’t really care freshman year,” he said. “Now I’m way more confident.”
If he could change anything, it wouldn’t be the setbacks, it would be starting sooner. “I wish I got into lifting, wrestling, and football earlier, but I don’t regret anything. It all helped me get here.”
That perspective is what separates Kassab from most athletes who try to switch paths. Plenty of people experiment, few commit. For Kassab, the lesson is simple. “No matter what sport you want to do, time in the weight room helps,” he said. “It can never hurt you.”
The search that started in a cross-country uniform isn’t over, however. Now, Kassab has his sights set on MMA, looking to add striking to the wrestling foundation he spent three years building. He’s been reinventing himself since he was 14 years old and 130 pounds. So why stop now?
