Brotherly Shove
The bond between the Lamer brothers is vaulting Cal Poly Wrestling to national rankings.
For the Lamer brothers, wrestling isn’t just a sport — it’s part of who they are.
“My parents put singlets on us before we were even able to walk,” Brawley Lamer (Kinesiology ’22) said. “It’s the standard for us: we wrestle.”
Wrestling and family have always been intertwined for the Lamers. So it’s no surprise that once Brawley decided to join the Cal Poly wrestling team in 2017, his three younger brothers — Legend, Chance and Daschle — would soon follow suit.
With all four brothers contributing to the success of the Mustang wrestling program in some fashion, the Lamers are helping Cal Poly build a perennial powerhouse on the mat and cementing their family’s legacy within the sport.
“Without them, we wouldn’t be the program we are today,” Brawley said about his brothers.
The sport came naturally to them thanks to their father, Chad Lamer, who wrestled at South Dakota State from 1991 to 1996, claiming three NCAA Division II national titles. He also competed in the 2004 Olympic Trials and twice earned a spot on the U.S. Freestyle National Team.
The Lamers were a force to be reckoned with on the mat from the moment they strapped on singlets. When the family moved from Brookings, South Dakota, to Corvallis, Oregon, in 2014, the siblings helped transform a struggling wrestling program at Crescent Valley High School into a state title contender.
With their dad as head coach, Brawley was a three-time placer at state, while Legend, Chance and Daschle all captured state titles. In 2019, Legend and Chance led Crescent Valley to the program’s first team state title. Two more would follow in 2020 and 2022.
Despite posting a perfect 40-0 record en route to a state title as a senior, Brawley didn’t receive many offers from Division I schools. But after a recruiting trip and a pitch from head coach Jon Sioredas — who was in his first year of rebuilding the program at the time — Brawley was convinced that Cal Poly was the perfect fit.
“I came down here and fell in love right away,” he said.
Legend wasn’t far behind, joining the program in 2019 and opting to study business administration.
“Sioredas sold me on the vision that he had for the future of this program, and I really liked it,” Legend said. “I wanted to help grow this program into what it is today, and hopefully even further.”
Chance took a much different route to San Luis Obispo. He committed to Big Ten powerhouse Michigan out of high school, spending two years there. After advancing to the Round of 12 at the 2023 NCAA Championships as a redshirt freshman, Chance had several discussions with his family and brothers after the season and decided he needed a change in scenery.
“If I were to go back and do [the recruiting process] again,” said Chance, “I would have just [gone] straight to Cal Poly, but that was just the path life took me on.”
Chance transferred to an interdisciplinary studies major as the youngest Lamer brother, Daschle, was already set to join the Mustangs in 2023 and study kinesiology. Brawley stayed with the team as its operations manager as he pursued his MBA.
The Lamer brothers are still writing their legacy at Cal Poly, but the impact they’ve had on the program can’t be overstated. Being ranked in the top 25 and sending multiple wrestlers to nationals annually is now part of the standard. The Lamers have revitalized the program, but the brothers all agreed the turnaround has everything to do with the coaching staff.
The Lamers said the coaches have helped them focus less on wins and losses and more on being the best version of themselves in all aspects of life.
“I love that my younger brothers will get to learn from [our coaches] and have them in their lives,” Legend said. “They’re such good, genuine people that actually care about their athletes outside of just how they are performing. We feel really lucky to be able to wrestle for them.”
In a pair of home duals against American and Northern Colorado on Jan. 12, all four brothers got the opportunity to experience something truly remarkable. Chance wrestled at 149 pounds, Legend at 157 and Daschle at 174, marking the first time that three Lamer brothers appeared in the same dual lineup. Brawley sat matside as a coach and said it’s a moment he’ll remember for the rest of his life.
“It was honestly magical,” Brawley recalled. “It’s something that I didn’t think was possible, but COVID was kind of a blessing in that way because it allowed me to stay here for another two years and see Chance and Daschle come into the lineup.”
The three brothers went a combined 5-1 on the night and went on to wrestle together in the Mustangs’ next two duals, including at Oregon State on Jan. 19. With dozens of friends and family cheering them on, Chance, Legend and Daschle took the mat in Corvallis — a place the Lamers called home for roughly a decade. Daschle said emotions were high that night and there were some nerves, but the rush of adrenaline he got from taking the mat with his brothers in their hometown overshadowed it all.
“Just thinking about it gives me chills,” Brawley added about the experience in Corvallis. “We had our own section of the crowd that came to see just us.”
While navigating their own success, the Lamer brothers keep working hard to elevate Cal Poly Wrestling to compete among the best programs in the nation.
“I want this team to keep growing,” Daschle said, “and I definitely want people to realize how special this program really is.”
