He is up at 5:30 a.m. on Saturday, and his family is still asleep.
He arrives at BV by 6:30 a.m. for the wrestling team to weigh in prior to a tournament.
A jam-packed day of coaching with back-to-back wrestling matches.
He is home by 7 p.m. — if he’s lucky.
His two sons are asleep by now, and his wife hasn’t seen him all day.
Former assistant wrestling coach Jason Peres decided to end his coaching career to spend more time with his family.
“There was not a lot of time left to spend with my family after wrestling,” Peres said. “I am old now. I get worn out. The constant pressure made me wonder ‘Is it worth it?”’
Peres was an assistant wrestling coach at BV for 8 years.
“It was a really hard decision for me to make,” Peres said. “I have to allocate my time. My children were just more important than wrestling.”
Peres has two sons — Landon who is six months old and Grant who is two years old.
Peres said when Landon was born last year he decided to give up his position.
“When Grant was born, I thought about quitting, too,” he said. “Now, it was just time.”
With Peres resigning, there will be no wrestling coaches working in the BVHS building, which is something Peres said could possibly harm the program.
“There’s no one to speak at the assemblies, and the kids can’t run by and tell something to their coach,” he said. “It’s hard to build a good program without a face in the program here.”
Coaches usually seek out wrestlers before the season begins, but without a coach at BV, that won’t happen.
“We are going to have to rely on kids naturally coming out for wrestling,” Peres said.
Although he said he will miss being a coach, he feels like he will still be part of the team.
“I can take Grant to wrestling matches now,” Peres said. “I think my kids would be great wrestlers.”
Wrestler junior Jacob Sims said Peres not only made the wrestlers better through practices, but made practices more fun and comfortable.
“We’d have life conversations,” Sims said. “He was always there to talk to.”
Wrestler senior Kellen Rios said Peres made the wrestlers think about more than just wrestling.
“He was a different type of coach,” Rios said. “He was able to help us out and make us think about life.”
Wrestling coach and teacher at Blue Valley Academy Chris Paisley, said Peres was a lot of fun and had a great sense of humor.
Even though Paisley said he will miss Peres being a coach, he understands why he came to the decision.
“Now he’s got two little kids he gets to play with,” he said. “And that is even more fun.”