2018 FALL LC MAGAZINE

or Sean Reese ’05, it started while growing up by the Susquehanna River. He loved to fish. He loved to be outdoors on the water. From his home in Milton, Pa., it was a quick trip to the river and its tributaries, and it was there that Reese began to realize what he wanted to do. For Seth Lansberry ’17, who grew up in Klingerstown, Pa., his love of the outdoors began in the creek behind his family’s house, looking for tadpoles and fish. Their love for wrestling grew in the same gymnasiums in the Susquehanna River Valley, although they were separated in age by nearly a decade. The connection for Reese and Lansberry has grown deeper in the last five years, thanks to that shared love of their chosen sport, as well as several shared studies of the Susquehanna River ecosystem. Reese’s love of fishing was avid while he attended Lycoming as an archaeology major. If he was stressed, if he was bored, if he just had a few spare hours, he would head off campus looking for a spot to cast his fly-fishing rod. Luckily for him, wrestling teammates like Al Fluman ’05 and Derek Crane ’06, who is now a professor of fisheries and aquatic ecology at Coastal Carolina University, were usually willing to head off by his side. For Reese and Crane, fly-fishing was competitive, but it also became a living laboratory. They would study the bugs that came off the stream in an effort to better fish, but they were also learning about the ecosystem along the streams. Reese went on to earn a master’s degree in biology from Marshall University before returning to Central Pennsylvania, where he joined Bucknell University’s faculty as a project scientist in the Watershed Sciences and Engineering Program in 2010. He teaches and conducts research in this role, along with some outreach. He said he likes to lecture on the river to give his students a new appreciation for the water. “I like the Susquehanna River watershed because it is a larger river, but at the same time, there is a complexity in that it behaves like a small stream,” Reese said. “There’s not a lot that is understood about the Susquehanna, while we have a lot of understanding of some of the ecosystems of other rivers. The Susquehanna is kind of its own unique animal.” With the move back to the area came Reese’s role as an assistant wrestling coach at his alma mater, where he has helped Coach Roger Crebs in eight of the last nine seasons at Lycoming. It was in that role that Reese met Lansberry, who came to Lycoming in 2013 after finishing second in the state at 138 pounds as a high school senior. In the next four years, Lansberry racked up a school-record 145 wins and as a senior, he went 41-2 while earning his second All-American honors. Early in Lansberry’s career, Reese discovered their kinship for fishing and began to make use of Lansberry’s interest in ecology. Together, the pair has electro-fished on White Deer Creek to get baseline data of the fish, as well as conducted some bio-assessment surveys on smaller streams in the area. “A lot of the projects that Seth has worked on with me have been presented at national or regional conferences, and some of it has been published,” Reese said. When Crebs offered Lansberry a position as a full-time assistant wrestling coach this spring, Reese was quick to reach out with summer projects — including a native fish survey near the Adam V. Bower Dam in Sunbury, Pa., something Lansberry was eager to take on after a year working in Philadelphia at React Environmental. In wrestling, Lansberry is complimentary of Reese’s coaching style, saying he always wanted Reese in his corner for a big match. “Talking to Reese can relax you before a match,” he said. “You know that no matter how you do, at the end of the match, he’ll tell you that there were some good things and bad things to work on. That really helped me. I asked for him to be one of my coaches in my corner at the national championships junior year because of that. I hope I can be as good as he is.” Reese attributes his coaching style in part to the similarities between his studies and wrestling. “In my professional career as a biologist, I have to be disciplined,” Reese said. “You have to be able to manage your time to get the studies done. Working outside, you are always going to be thrown a curveball and you have to overcome that. With wrestling, you take everything head on and if you are a field biologist, you have to adapt.” Reese Lansberry 27 www.lycoming.edu