Sidelines: Illinois-bound Warren star Stewart acknowledged by National Wrestling Hall of Fame
Warren senior Aaron Stewart is up for the school’s male athlete of the year award. A recent award by the National Wrestling Hall of Fame & Museum may bolster his bid.
On April 16 the Oklahoma institution named Stewart the Illinois winner of the Dave Schultz High School Excellence Award. Named for the late U.S. Olympian and world champion, the award salutes athletics, academics, citizenship and community service.
“It’s definitely a big deal,” Stewart said. “There’s only one in the state every year, so I’d say it’s a pretty big achievement.”
In June, Stewart will join the University of Illinois’ wrestling program while also training at running back with Illini football. Wrestling is his main sport, the No. 5 overall recruit in the Class of 2026 when InterMat wrote about his commitment in January 2025.
He’ll join his sister, Gabi, at Illinois. Stewart described her as a “mathlete.”
Warren’s all-time leader with 168 victories on the mat, Aaron Stewart as a freshman placed third in Class 3A at 152 pounds, then won state titles at 157, 175 and 190, the last on a 15-0 technical fall in the first period. He’s Warren’s only three-time champ.
Stewart also is a four-time national Fargo freestyle champion and wrestled last summer at the 2025 Under-17 World Championships in Athens, Greece.
National Wrestling Hall of Fame operations manager Jack Carnefix noted that Stewart is a National Honor Society student on Warren’s Student Athlete Leadership Team, and he also is an Illinois Kids Wrestling Federation official and a volunteer coach at Toss 'Em Up Wrestling Academy in Waukegan.
All he did last football season was run for 2,782 yards and 46 touchdowns to give him 7,020 yards rushing at Warren. The numbers aren’t on the Illinois High School Association records list, but his overall rushing yardage, single-season and 100 total rushing touchdowns all would be in the top six.
Stewart was the unanimous North Suburban Conference player of the year, and he repeated as Class 8A first-team all-state and Daily Herald Lake County All-Area Team captain.
Yet wrestling is his priority. Now between 190 and 195 pounds, he’ll have to cut weight to get where Illinois wants him, 184 or 174.
Talking to Stewart on Monday, it sounded like he couldn’t believe he had only nine days left in high school.
“It’s been a short four years, it felt really fast,” he said. “I’d really like to thank all my coaches, my mom and my dad (Pam and Ryan), and all my teammates that helped me get to this point.”
Chip off the old block
Three days after Stewart earned his award, Schaumburg girls wrestling coach Matt Gruszka got one.
At the Illinois Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association Hall of Fame banquet April 19 in Southwest suburban Alsip, Gruszka was named IWCOA “person of the year” along with Kennedy Blades of Chicago, a 2024 Olympic silver medalist.
Gruszka earned it by his advocacy of girls wrestling, not only as Saxons head coach since 2021 but on the ground floor of the push to an IHSA girls state series.
Gruszka also helped establish the IWCOA girls dual team state invitational championship, where Schaumburg finished second in 2024 and 2025.
“They actually listened to my ideas and ran with them,” he said.
Gruszka coached the girls’ Team Illinois for two years at the Illinois-Indiana Classic Dual, and he is on the committee that helps select Team Illinois.
Schaumburg’s math department chair, Gruszka himself had a great teacher. His father is retired Naperville North coach Stan Gruszka, a hall of fame inductee by both IWCOA and the Illinois High School Football Coaches Association.
While winning 139 matches at Naperville North (another 90 at Illinois State), from his father Matt Gruszka learned how to run a wrestling program “and have consistency from year to year,” he said.
“When I took over I definitely modeled the same things he showed me.”
After assisting at Hoffman Estates for more than a decade, in 2007 Gruszka became Schaumburg’s head boys coach. Aided by wrestling sons Luke and Logan, from 2008-11 Matt Gruszka’s .706 winning percentage in duals tops all Saxons mat coaches.
Coaching girls, he said, is “different but yet the same.” He had to learn differences in strength and flexibility that impact moves. Girls have an extreme desire to please, Gruszka said. Sometimes he needs to get them not to push so hard.
Also Schaumburg’s girls flag football coach, at 54 — prime enough to take second at 171 pounds at the 2025 Veterans U.S. Open in Las Vegas — Gruszka is set to retire after the 2026-27 school year. He plans to stay involved in athletics.
“As I come to the end as I retire, watching the growth of these (girls) sports is great,” he said.
doberhelman@dailyherald.com