Kansas Wrestling Forums General Discussion High School Who started/1st coach the wrestling program.

Fun post as the season gets started. Who was the first coach at the different Kansas high schools. Started the program. I am sure there are some legends/pioneers in this category.

Depends on your definition of "legends/pioneers". My guess is that most if not all of the programs were started by coaches who had nothing better to do or who were strong-armed into it. They likely had no wrestling experience and were closet ******ball fans. The good or great wrestling coaches probably came somewhere down the line once the programs were established and the fans demanded qualified coaches.

Arkansas City - Bunt Speer (Quality and First)

Sport0,

Given your age I would think you would be the leading authority on this topic.

Junction City- legendary Ben Bennett

Jim Beltch Lawrence high... but back then there was no freestate

DARRELL SCHMEIDLER--Lincoln High School
(1976-2005)
*34 State Placers
*8 State Finalists
*4 State Champions

Coach Gary Ulmer - Olathe (North) HS (1970-2003)
41 State placers:
10 State Champions
5 Runner-up State Champions
9 Third Placers
10 Fourth Placers
2 Fifth Placers
5 Sixth Placers
1 Girl's Third Placer
And 33 beyond placing:
2 at National Tournament
4 National All-Americans
2 KS 6A Wrestler of the Year
6 All-Metro All Star Selections
4 East-West Classic All-Stars
15 KS All Academic Team

John Dickerson, Garden City
Archie Vernon, Oakley

Concordia-Larry Hartshorn (1966-1974) Some people may not know this so I will put it on this post. He passed away this fall.

In addition to what Brock entered, Larry was the first coach and also playing a part was Herschel Betts, the legendary football and track coach at Concordia. Herschel was originally from Oberlin and wanted to start the sport here. He later went back to Oberlin to become an administrator. In the 80's we attended the Oberlin tournament and won it several times. Herschel came up to me and said, "If I knew you guys were going to come out here and kick our butts, I would have never helped start the program." Of course, he was chuckling as he said it. With Larry's passing we lost a great man.

Doug Moore

Bob Williams who wrestled for OSU on Ed Gallagher's last team in 1939 took 3rd at 174+/- pounds behind Henry Wittenburg, and a 2xx champ from Indiana whose name I don't remember. Started the wrestling program at Campus High when it opened in the fall of 1960, which was my sophomore year.

He had coached at Hoxie for 20 years, and despite having teams finish as high as 3rd, never could beat St. Francis in a dual meet. He told us that St. Francis would run two varsity teams during the regular season, one team might be wrestling in Colorado, while the other would be wrestling in Kansas. They wrestled off to see who got to be in the Northwest Kansas League Tournament, and Northwest District Tournament. St. Francis won state 5 years in a row in the 1950s,when there was only one class.

Douglass won the first state tournament in 1930, and 30 years later under Darrell Hill won it again, with everybody, but the heavyweight qualfying for state.

I think Ken Spicer started the program at Wichita South. Dee Gard started Wichita Heights.

What you don't see today that you saw then, was the head coaches of schools officiating dual meets and tournaments. We'd usually have Ken Spicer to referee our dual meets at Campus. Bob Williams would regularly go to Oklahoma to referee tournaments. With very few exceptions they were also very good referees, because they really understood the sport.

I don't know how many schools were in the first few state tournaments. I do know at one time all of the Wichita schools which were comprised of East and North were in the Ark Valley League along with Hutchinson, Newton, El Dorado, Winfield, and Wellington. Ark City started wrestling in 1960 as did Campus. Campus got into the Ark Valley League my senior year, but we usually wrestled everybody but Hutchinson in the dual meet season.

I'm amazed at how strong the northeast part of the state has gotten. When I was in high school if you could get out of the southeast district, which was held at Douglass, it included West, South, and North, and Heights, plus all of the Ark Valley schools, except Hutch,you figured you would make it to state. The next weekend Campus would generally hold the east regional. East, Southeast, Emporia, and Topeka Highland would come it with 9-11 kids per team qualifying out of the northeast district. Each school would be lucky to get 2-3 qualifiers for state.

I remember that if you lost in the district, the opponent you lost to had to make the finals. I lost in the quarters to Mike Davis from Wichita South, who then lost to Garwin McDaniel (sp) from Douglass in the semifinals. The Southeast district at 165 had the 1,3, and 4th placers at the state tournament.

I've lived in Arizona since 1978, but will be back to visit next in two weeks,prior to going to the Oklahoma Open, and the OU/OSU game. Even though I've been gone a long time, I'm very pround of how my home state of Kansas is doing in producing quality high school wrestlers.

Sabetha's wrestling started in 69-70 with Steve Schroeder coaching.
Other Coaches along the way
Gary Brownlee
Mike Butler
Scot Hill
Randy McFall
Keith Hall
Mike Streit
Bill Ross
Kevin Huck
and our present Coaching Guru JASON BROWN

Sorry Mike and Keith just over looked you. Not sure how I could overlook Mike Butler as I used to come back and visit while at Peru State. Sometimes for practice and sometimes for evening outings!

Don't forget Mike Butler and Keith Hall

Some of the guys listed here didnt start the programs they are listed for but that doesnt matter they were all great at it. One guy that shouldnt be forgotten is Delbert Erickson at Newton. I wrestled against his kids and coached against him later on and had the pleasure of calling him my friend. I never saw anyone in my career that got more out of more kids than he could. He won several state championships at Newton and did it by placing kids that I never thought could place but they did. Delbert had a lot of great ones but he had a lot of average kids that he got a lot more out of than they thought they had in themselves. He was a quiet guy that sort of quietly faded away but boy I sure remember him for the great coach that he was.

Marvin Bell started the programs at Santa Fe Trail and Baldwin. He was SFTs old shop teacher, he was then followed by Gary Blosser, Merrick Wiles and Reagan Erickson.

I was not even aware that wrestling existed in Concordia before the arrival of the DOUG MOORE, but thank you for the history lesson and sorry for your program's loss.

Thanks for the reminder. Sorry Keith and Mike I updated my post
Mike

Liberal sits just barely in Kansas but has a storied sports history sending a handful of athletes to the NFL and NBA. They have won state in football, basketball, and track (including a remarkable string of 14 consectutive, I believe). Unfortunately they have never placed higher than 3rd in a state wrestling tournament. Here is a brief synopsis of their wrestling program.

Wrestling started in 1955 under coach Gerald Sadowsky (Ed Scott was on this first team.) Sadowsky was at the helm for three seasons before Coach Hoxie Freeman took over for two years. (Fred Scott was on these teams.) Wrestler Charles Zimmerman placed 4th in 1957 becoming Liberal's first medalist. (At this time there was only ONE state tournament.) The legendary Rocky Welton then took over and ran the program until 1964. In '64 Don Scott placed 4th at the state tournament. In 1965 Coach Ted Snyder took over (he was Stan Abel's high school coach) and Don Scott placed 2nd at the state tournament. Snyder's connection help Scott obtain a scholarship to wrestle for the University of Oklahoma. Snyder left after the '65 season and Fred Scott (former Redskin wrestler and teammate of Jim Beltch's at Ft. Hays) returned to his home town to run the program. In 1966 Tom Scott won Liberal's first state championship for his brother Fred. JD Armstrong took home a gold at this tournament as well. (this was the first year the small and big schools were split into seperate tournaments.) Coach Fred Scott left the program in the early 70's when John Kendall took over (Coach Kendall led Liberal to back-to-back state championship football games in 79 and 80, winning it all in '80.) Kendall coached until after the 77 season when Rob Fairchild took over for one season. In '79, Don Scott took the head coaching position. He coached through the '85 season when he left to attend law school. (He is now the Seward County Attorney.) In '81 David Tawater finished 2nd in the 5A state tournament and he is currently a Bishop Carroll assistant coach. Coach Rob Ross was named head coach and held this position until Tom Scott returned and took the head coaching position which he held until departing for Texas opening the head coaching position to Mike Pewthers who is still there today.

Rocky told me a hilarious story years ago about his first match at Liberal. New uniforms had been ordered; they were to be red leggings with black "swim trunks." The trunks came in but not the leggings. Rocky bought a bunch of long underwear and his wife dyed them red--they came out mostly pink--and that is what his team wore for that first dual meet!