Herndon Coach Wants Old School Wrestling Back

High school wrestling is one of the only sports in which the head coach controls the season schedule, including which schools to play, the format and when they will compete against district opponents.

About 30 years ago, schools predominantly wrestled in dual meets where 14 wrestlers of different weight classes competed against another school's 14 wrestlers in the same respective weight classes. Back then, there were few all-day tournaments, partially because fans do not want to sit on a wooden bench for six hours to watch their team wrestle.

Herndon High Head Coach Mike Gonzales wants to make some changes to the scheduling process that he hopes will bring some fans back to the matches. 

In  2003, the VHSL gave coaches fewer dates that tournaments and individual meets could be scheduled throughout the year and it was at that point where the trend began for coaches to schedule as many tournaments as possible to fit in as many matches as possible and fewer dual meets against one-time rivals.

Weekend tournaments, more travel and lack of rivalries all led to the decline of the fanbase, but Gonzales said he is determined to get his team back to the old-school style of scheduling dual meets for the majority of the season.

"The growing trend for these two-day rotational meets has kind of killed the fan base," Gonzales said. "But what I am trying to do, as well as some other coaches, is get back to the old fashioned one-on-one dual meets, and we bought a spotlight so we can have all the lights out and make it like a UFC event to put on the mat and make it exciting."

The coach said although the team was successful last year, an unusual number of students quit the team throughout the season, which he  partially blames on the amount of matches the athletes compete in during these all-day tournaments.

"We started out ranked 8th in region. I had about six of 14 ranked in top five to six spots in the region and started off really good," he said. "But by the end I had some injuries, some kids quit, and with the snow, guys had trouble making weight and we only had 12 kids in the wrestling room at the end of the year."

His team is much younger this year and Gonzales said he learned from last season and has scheduled fewer rotational tournaments, tri's and quads and replaced them with more dual meets.

"The energy level goes down when you don't have that many kids, so this year I didn't schedule as many matches," he said. "This year I am going to do it more gradual than in the past."

Gonzales believes he has a few wrestlers, including Gabe Pike and Ramon Reyes, who can possibly get to the state tournament. Pike is a junior and All-Regional wrestler  competing at 112 pounds and Reyes returns as a senior, wrestling at 119 pounds.

"Ramon will be one of the favorites to win a district title this year and reach far into the regional tournament," Gonzales said.

Gonzales wrestled for Herndon High School and graduated in 1994. He continued to wrestle for Longwood College. He has been the head coach of Herndon wrestling for five years and. He took over a strong senior-lead team but had to start from scratch in his second season.

"I inherited a senior class that was pretty good but there were not that many younger kids in the room," Gonzales said. "After they graduated I had to start the program over again so there was four years with younger kids and there were growing pains where 60 kids were there at the beginning of the season and at the end, only 30 kids."

The team is looking good in the pre-season and Gonzales contributes that to the feeder program he helped start for youths in the area to become familiar with the sport of wrestling.

"We have 40 kids this year and things are looking good with getting younger kids in the room," he said. "Most of the kids have never wrestled before and when I came in there was not feeder program, so I started one up five years ago and now I am seeing some of the benefits of that program."

Students are taught how to wrestle and compete in the feeder program so that when they enter high school, they are ready for how physically and emotionally draining it can be to wrestle at such a high level.

"We run it through parks and recreation for youths so when they get freshman you can insert them into the varsity program right away," Gonzales said. "There is about a two-year learning curve to get to the varsity level because you have to teach the rules, the point system, and the moves."

Overall, Gonzales believes this group of wrestlers he has this season may be young but shows much promise.

"The kids I have in there have a lot of energy and want to learn and is one of the best groups I have had in several years," he said.

Herndon will wrestle at home in a quad-meet on Dec. 4 at 10 a.m.