Ryan Smith, Newman Head wrestling Coach is a native and grad of lawrence. He wrestled @ Labette under Jody Thompson and maybe Renfro? I believe he was one of Newmans first All-Americans. Could be wrong on a detail or 2, but I know he's a Kansas guy.
Ok so adding Coach Smith to the list that Ricky Bobby compiled for us that means 6 of the 8 Kansas colleges last year had Kansas natives as Head Coaches that is 75%. That is a very high percentage. 1 of the 2 or 50% private schools competing this year had a Kansas native head coach.
Next year with the addition of Jacob Marrs at Bethany College 7 of the 9 head coaches of the Kansas college wrestling teams will be Kansas natives that increases the percentage to almost 78% again a very high percentage. Two of the three private schools next year Bethany and Newman will have Kansas natives as coaches that is about 67% and that is pretty good for a private school percentage.
So even if Benedictine ended up hiring a non Kansas native for the 2012-2013 season and everyone else stays the same, we would end up with 7 of the 10 programs with Kansas natives for head coaches 70% and two of the four private schools with Kansas natives for head coaches or 50%.
I would think with potentially no worst than 70% of our ten Kansas college wrestling programs with Kansas head coaches that most of us would view this as pretty decent and that it shows that having more programs in Kansas has definitely provided great opportunity both for Kansas native coaches and wrestlers.
