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In Play with Craig Mattick: Marv Sherrill

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He's arguably the best high school wrestling coach in state history. Marv Sherrill won eight state titles and was runner-up nine times during his 35 year career of coaching on the mat. He also was the girls track coach, who also saw significant success during Sherrill's time with the team.

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Craig Mattick: Welcome to another edition of In Play. I am Craig Mattick.

Today's guest, one of the most successful high school wrestling coaches in South Dakota. No coach has won more state wrestling titles than today's guest.

He won an individual high school wrestling title. He won an individual wrestling championship with SDSU when it was in the North Central Conference. And then of course, a head coach.

His team has won eight state titles. In fact, overall, Watertown and Rapid City Stevens have 10 team titles a piece. But it was a 35 year career, a career duel mark of over 500 wins.

He coached the girls track team for 33 years with one state title. He's also in a number of hall of fames. He's Marv Sherrill of Watertown. And Marv, welcome to In Play.

Marv Sherrill: Thank you very much.

Craig Mattick: What a wrestling career? But if, back in Cody, Wyoming, back in the mid '50s, could all of these wrestling marks be written off the map if you only had made the Cody Wyoming basketball team?

Marv Sherrill: No, because I'm only 5'6" now. There was no hope when you're my size.

Craig Mattick: But you didn't make the team, right?

Marv Sherrill: I could run or I could dribble. I could not do both at the same time. So he did me a favor by cutting me. And the wrestling coach said, "We need small guys." And so I went out and it turned out... Actually what I wanted to do was play football. Just like at South Dakota State, I went out for freshman football. That's my favorite sport.

But I remember getting in the huddle the first day and looking straight ahead and looking at navels and thinking, "I don't think this is going to go real well."

So I did play freshman football state. I only got into one game. In those days, North Dakota State was so bad, we got ahead by 40 points. And even I got in. So I can say I played one game of college football.

And then I thought, my sophomore year, "There's no sense playing football. I'm just not big enough." I was a guard, not a 100 mile running back. And I remember sitting... State's first home game, my sophomore year. I was about ready to cry, I said, "I'll never play football again." And then I got to looking around and realized, there are a lot of girls in the stand, it isn't all bad. So that was my football career.

Craig Mattick: Did you get into wrestling though, right away in Cody, Wyoming? Were you a freshman in high school at that time, or earlier?

Marv Sherrill: Yeah. Yeah.

Craig Mattick: How successful were you in those three years as a freshman, a sophomore, and a junior as a wrestler in Cody, Wyoming?

Marv Sherrill: In Wyoming, I was average, I never placed in the state meet. And then Christmas of my senior year, my father got transferred to Huron, and I went out for wrestling. It worked out well because I made 40 brand new friends the first night.

Wrestling was not as far advanced in South Dakota as it wasn't... It was old sport in Wyoming. In South Dakota it was fairly new. So I wasn't that good, but I was good enough to win.

Craig Mattick: You won a state title. You won a state title.

Marv Sherrill: Yeah, I did. And it was a different world back in then. I was used to Cody and Wyoming wrestling. For instance, we went to Miller... And now we're talking a long time ago, but we get there and we see the Miller wrestlers going, this is the National Guard Armory. They go into a room and they start bringing out mattresses. And they lay the mattresses in a square and then they get a boxing canvas and put it on top of the mattresses, and tuck it under. And that's what we wrestled on.

Well, there were several problems. For one thing, mattresses are soft and after a while they start to separate. You could step between mattresses and your foot would disappear. And if you ever got on your back, there was no way you're going to bridge, you're sunk in.

And the third thing is, a boxing canvas is made for traction. Well it was '95 in those days. Went out wrestled a guy by name of Smokey Wallman, who ended up wrestling for Iowa State. But anyway, he came off the mat and he was crying because that boxing canvas had erased about half of his face. He had these hideous mat burns. It was awful. But that's the way it was back in the day.

And then there were 16 wrestling schools. Everybody brought their whole team, and the State Wrestling Tournament was at Spearfish, at the college.

So yeah, things were a little different in those days.

Craig Mattick: The first year on Tiger to win a state wrestling title was Marv Sherrill. That's pretty cool. What weight division was that, by the way?

Marv Sherrill: 127. And then went to college... Well, South Dakota State said, "Come down here and we can maybe pay your tuition," or something. Well, in 1960 when I graduate, tuition was $66 a quarter. They didn't spend a lot of money on me, but I was so thrilled anybody wanted me, that I went down and wrestled for Warren Williamson at State. And it worked out very well.

Shoot. The thing about him is he was kind of self-taught, he was a all North Central Conference football player, but no wrestling experience. And he just plain taught us and we were in great shape. So-

Craig Mattick: That would've been about 1963 to '65 ish? Right about that time is when you were wrestling for the Jacks?

Marv Sherrill: '60 to '64. '60 to '64.

Craig Mattick: Was sports big in your family when you were growing up?

Marv Sherrill: No, Uh-huh. My father worked as a commercial fisherman growing up, down south, and came up to Wyoming and worked. Ended up in Cody, marrying my mom, and he worked in the oil rigs.

And then in 1945 or '44, when the war was going, he got drafted. And so no, I think he had an eighth grade education and I think my mother graduated from high school, and that was about it. So no, from the family side, no sports were not.

But Cody High School, that's another thing too though. Cody High School, there's a lot with oil around there. And Cody High School had their own traveling bus. The year after I graduated, the football team flew to Scotts Bluff, Nebraska, to play a football game. There was that much money at that time.

And then unfortunately, there's Husky Oil Refinery across the river from Cody, and they paid, I suppose, a ton of taxes. But then the oil ran out in that area and pretty soon Cody High School got to be like everybody else, and had to budget and cut down and everything.

Craig Mattick: How do you suppose though, Marv, that wrestling was the sport that maybe had one of your biggest interests, maybe, the success that it had?

Marv Sherrill: Well, I weighed a 140 pounds maybe, and I wasn't a running back, so I had to be a guard. And you don't have any 140 pound guards in... But wrestling, I wrestled someone my own size. And Bob Hockley, my wrestling coach in Cody, recruited me, he said, "We really like to have you. We need a 95 pounder or 127."

That's why I liked the competition. I couldn't play football anymore. So it was a combative sport that I liked and it turned out very, very well for me.

Craig Mattick: What about the training regime back when you were in high school and comparing it to what's going on today?

Marv Sherrill: Well, I know what I did to my kids all the year, I was here. But down there, I don't think we trained as hard. Well, my kids in Watertown got up every morning. And Watertown High School was a quarter mile around the inside and they'd either run... One day they would run just nine minutes. That's in the overtime. Nine minutes steady jog. The next day we'd sprint the straightaways and walk the short side. A interval training type thing.

Yeah, we worked a lot harder, or I worked the kids a lot harder here, but it was still, when I started, kids never... If the coach said, "Run through a wall," they ran through a wall. It's just the way it was. And I was fortunate to have a bunch of very good kids wrestle for me.

Had a kid like Rick Jensen for instance, four time state champion. Fine young man name of Vince Hahn, my only really good heavyweight. Vince Hahn was first team all-state in football. He was a state champion wrestler for me. And he won the shot in discus in the state track meet. You have a few kids like that around, it really helps. It makes you an awfully good coach.

Craig Mattick: After SDSU, you're done with your wrestling career, you stayed in Brookings, and you were at Brookings High. What was going on?

Marv Sherrill: Yeah, they needed an assistant coach at Brookings. Bill Gibbons was the head coach, and he played football at State. And they needed a social studies teacher and they needed an assistant coach so... And they said, "You can help coach freshman football and work with track." So shoot, that fit right in for me. And I was right there.

And also it enabled me to start my master's degree. So cheap place to stay, being paid for it, and right there at the college. So that worked out very well.

And then I was the head coach for two years and then I brought a busload of Brookings' kid wrestlers up to Watertown. This was in the spring, they had a kid wrestling tournament. And it was just at that time that the football coach at Watertown, took the Black Hills College job. Mackelaney, the wrestling coach, took the football job. And they said, "Would you and your wife like to interview because we have a German opening," she taught German, "And we need a wrestling coach and we need a history teacher." So we interviewed and got the job. And that's how we ended up in Watertown. And then we just stayed.

Craig Mattick: And that was 1968 about. And for the next 35 years you lead Watertown to eight wrestling titles. You had what, eight or nine runner-up finishes? 14 ESD titles, region champ 18 times, you coached over 500 duel wins for Watertown. Why was it so successful up in Watertown? What was going on?

Marv Sherrill: Well, I worked the kids hard. And we had just some really fine kids. Watertown is a good place to coach. It really is because you go down to Brookings and unless you're phenomenal, you are second fiddle to South Dakota State. Brookings High School, what's that?

In Watertown, Watertown High School is the center of attention. We got the money, we got all the support, we got the newspaper. It's just a different world up here. Athletics and Watertown High School are very important.

Well, I'm a Jackrabbit so I'm proud of them. But not sure if anybody can even think about Brookings High School for the next two or three years after the state won that football title. So yeah, it was just much nicer to come up here where Watertown High School was the center of attention, and the support was good. It was, I thought, a good move.

Craig Mattick: Marv, what makes a good wrestler?

Marv Sherrill: You have to be a competitive kid. You have to like and you have to be strong. I'll tell you what, some of my best wrestlers were farm kids. They were used to hard work and physically they were stronger to average kid. So I like the farm kids.

But no, you have to be about half mean. And you have to be aggressive, and you have to not get discouraged. "I'm not going to give up, I'm going to keep fighting." It takes that type of person. So it takes a special breed to wrestle.

And if you got the combination... Or like, say the Althoff boys wrestle for me. They're all very good students, two of them are engineers now. Very, very strong kids. Good attitude. I had a lot of kids like that.

Strong, good attitude, not afraid of hard work. Because, like I said, they got up every morning and ran. I liked that because that way I could not have to worry so much about conditioning in practice, and do more technique, which I think helped.

And face it, I would go to a Nashville coaching convention, I'd say, "Well we get our kids up and they run at seven o'clock in the morning." And had some coach say, "You can get your kids up to run?" "Well, yeah."

But it started so long ago. Back in those days, you just said, "That's what we do." And the kids, "Okay Coach, if you say so." And that's the way it was.

That's why we go through the training regimen we do. And I think I can say it with a straight face, nobody ever beat us on shape. They might be better wrestlers, whether it might be the technique, but people will not beat us in shape.

And one of my favorite team to wrestle against, Canby High School. They got a bunch of strong farm kids, and they come after you. And we try and make the best schedule we can.

So you wrestle at Canby's and you wrestle some of those schools. Or like the wrestling team this year, went up to Bismarck, won a big Bismarck tournament.

And the thing that's changed this year, we also have 10 girls out. And we had two champions up there. Two of our girls are champions.

So that's a whole nother aspect that's changed. We have girls in the wrestling room now, so you can be a world champion or an Olympic champion as a female. So we've got girls.

Craig Mattick: That's true.

Let's talk about some of the great Watertown wrestlers that you got to coach. And I want you to tell me something a little bit about them.

And let's start off with the guy that you just mentioned, Rick Jensen, four time champ, 1971 through '74. What was so special about Rick?

Marv Sherrill: Well the thing about Rick is, he was so clever. He was about a move ahead of his opposition. Even as a freshman, he went right out. That was funny too. We're going to go out, wrestle Rapid City. He was excited because he was a freshman and he came from a family that didn't have a lot of money. He'd never been to Rapid City. He was excited. He was going to go to Rapid City. That was a big deal for him.

Well, he went on down the state and was a national champion. He was an exceptionally talented young man.

Then I have a kid like Mike Ingles, who also wrestled for state and was an assistant resident coach at one time. There again, he came from a family, didn't have a lot of money, but boy, wrestling was good for him. And he was a very highly intelligent individual, but he just went out and gobbled people up.

Craig Mattick: How about an Nate Althoff, three time champ 2000 through 2002?

Marv Sherrill: Well there again, we're talking a farm kid and muscular. And his brother is working out with us. He's in college now at State, but also big muscled kid. They were typical farm kids, so just hardworking. And his dad wrestled, Althoff's dad wrestled for the Waubay Dragons a long, long time ago. So they are a wrestling family.

Well, then we had the Cordell boys.

Speaker 1: Steve, two-time champ.

Marv Sherrill: Strong farm kids. Yeah, and strong, strong farm kids. And they had a sister named Cis. And I wish Cis were in high school right now because she's very strong. But she would love to have wrestled. And I think she would've done very well in it.

Like I said, there again, my farm kids. I've had kids that weren't farm kids, but... Well then I get a kid like Randy Rochek. Randy was just slick, got a way of doing things.

Craig Mattick: How about Tim Muchard? He was a two time champ back in the late '80s.

Marv Sherrill: Yeah, now there you get, academically, a very bright young man, who came off a farm. They have a farm on Wishard, had a knee that would go out of place. He'd wrestle, all of a sudden he'd stop and he'd come over to the side, limp over, I'd grab his ankle and his knee and I'd pop it. And his knee would reduce the dislocation. He'd get up, and shake his leg couple times, go back out and wrestle. That's the type of kid he was.

And like I said, very good student. He went to South Dakota State and I think he had an engineering degree. I'll tell you what, seriously, if you can have an intelligent athlete, he's way ahead of the game.

Craig Mattick: Eight state wrestling titles, is there one year that stands out amongst the rest?

Marv Sherrill: No, that'd be hard to say, really.

Craig Mattick: You went back-to-back a couple of times back in '92 and '93, and '99 into 2000. Something special about those two teams that went back-to-back?

Marv Sherrill: The reason you get success that way is don't let anybody graduate, just let them all wrestle for a year. So yeah, we had just good bunch of kids. Well, like right now, Pierre is really loaded for bear.

Craig Mattick: You coached an international wrestling team once and you traveled to Mexico. What was that experience like?

Marv Sherrill: That was just a lot of fun. I'll tell you. We had a bunch of, well they're all state champions from all over the state, and they all had to raise, I don't know how much money. And we flew down to Mexico City and it was a great cultural experience for those kids too. For one thing, go to Mexico City and it's an old city. I don't know when it was founded, but it just was a lot of fun. We stayed in a college dorm, and then we had a bus that hauled us around. See that was another thing too, Jose, our bus driver, only understood English when he wanted to.

And there is a Volkswagen factory outside of Mexico City. And for some reason Jose hated Volkswagens. Jose by the way, his standard rule of thumb, he always ran a red light. If it was yellow, that just meant speed up.

Well Jose looked in the rear view mirror and saw that there was a Volkswagen behind us. And I think the Volkswagen expected Jose to run at the red light. Jose locked up in the brakes and the Volkswagen ran into the back of us. And Jose was going up there going.

And then one of the kids stuck their head out the window and honest to gosh, King Kong got out of that Volkswagen. Our kids took up and he's, "Jose, he's big and he's mad." Jose ran the red light. He left.

It was just a wonderful experience.

The other thing we found out, they told us now, "Be careful about where you drank the water." And some of the kids didn't listen and we had some pretty miserable kids.

Craig Mattick: How many days were you down there?

Marv Sherrill: Oh God, I think we're down there three weeks.

Craig Mattick: Oh, really?

Marv Sherrill: And the other thing we found out, it was just a great experience. You go to the market. And I learned [foreign language 00:20:22] how much? And then they'd haggle. They never expect you to pay the first price. And the kids came back with more stuff. They had big sombreros and suede, leather jackets. It was just a wonderful time.

We traveled to those pyramids out by Mexico City. We traveled around the area of Mexico City. Just a great cultural experience for those kids.

Craig Mattick: Well during your time at Watertown, was there any chance or any ambition to coach on the college level?

Marv Sherrill: No, not at all. See I coach freshman football, I coach girls track. You go to the college level, what do you do? You raise funds, you recruit, and you coach one sport. Well I wasn't interested. I liked what I was doing. So no.

They talked to me a little bit at Black Hills, a little, and some things like that. And I was flattered, but I never was interested. I liked what I was doing, coaching this era, these kids and coaching three sports. And I'm retired now, but I still help with football and wrestling.

And in the spring now, I work with track, I work with girls golf. The trouble with that is, it's do as I say, not as I do. Because remember my first night out for golf with the girls, and I teed off, what I thought was a pretty good shot. And then the girl I was playing with, teed off, and her ball was probably 30 feet in the air and still going where mine had stopped rolling. So I thought, "Okay, it's do as I say, not as I do."

Also found out that girls are afraid of snakes. I remember we were playing a tournament, I'm in my car, four girls came running back, "We can't tee off. We can't tee off." "Why not?" "There's a big snake going down there." There was a garter snake about the size of a night crawler. And I had to catch that little snake and put him in the leaves. And then they were okay.

But I really enjoy coaching the girls in golf. So that's just, it's night thing. Yeah, it doesn't pay. But what the heck?

Craig Mattick: During your 35 years of coaching at Watertown, you mentioned you coached the girls track for 33 years. Why girls track?

Marv Sherrill: Well, I was the freshman boys coach for one year. And the girls track coach left and nobody wanted the job. So Jerry Wolf said, "Do you want to be the head girls track coach?" I said, "Sure, why not?"

And I thought, "Well, I'll treat these girls just like I do the boys. So I got them up to run in the morning and this... Well, the first morning, I forgot that a boy with a crew cut can get in, get showered in about 20 minutes.

Craig Mattick: Yes.

Marv Sherrill: A girl with long hair takes a lot longer. And I wrote a whole bunch of passes that first date to get them into class. And then we had to start running earlier in the morning with the girls.

And I really enjoyed the girls. And I was kind of a male chauvinist pig. And I found out there were girls that could run faster than I could, could pole vault higher than I could, could jump farther than I could. I found out just how good athletes... Then you get a girl like Kate Stormo. She went to Iowa on a track scholarship. Still has the all-time record in the mile. That little girl that could pole vault 13 feet.

I had some great girls, they just were super.

Craig Mattick: 1978, you won the title. What was special about that girls track team?

Marv Sherrill: Well we just had good balance. We did a little bit of everything well. That's the secret. You got to score on a lot of events. And I couldn't coach a high jumper. I don't have the patience. "Just jump, what are you doing?" That's why I like coaching sprints and relays. "Run as hard as you can and turn left at the end of the straightaway." I can handle that.

So that was just, like I said, a well-balanced team. But we scored in a lot of events and-

Craig Mattick: Won the title.

Marv Sherrill: Who would've known? I thought we were going to win a couple other times. It didn't quite happen. But like you said, Watertown girls still hold a lot of records. And the Watertown girl records are very, very good.

Craig Mattick: Building a new facility up there in Watertown.

Marv Sherrill: Oh yeah, that's going to be really... Have you driven by that much? A soon as they get rid of that big pile of dirt. But no, it looks nice. I think we're the only school in the ESD that didn't have a turf football field. We've got one now. We had that whole other track. But now we have a very, very nice track. That's a beautiful facility. I'm glad to see that come.

Craig Mattick: Well we talked about the girls track, but girls are wrestling now. What's your reaction now that we are seeing the girls on the mat?

Marv Sherrill: I don't think anything's changed. We have a little girl, Olivia Anderson. Unfortunately, the lightest weight in the girls is, well it depends on where you go, but she's really good. She is very, very good. She's as good as any of the boys I think, as far as technique. But the little flea only weighs about 90 pounds. So she's lost one match. She was a 106 pound match in the... It was a bigger girl.

Craig Mattick: The Girls State Wrestling Tournament's been around now for a couple of years and I've noticed too, the technique has gotten really good, just in the last two years.

Marv Sherrill: Well yeah, these girls, well they practice right with us, with the boys. And just like the guys, they do the same thing the guys do. And like I said, Olivia is just such a slick little thing. When she gets about 10 pounds heavier, she's going to be just a monster because she won't be spotting 20 pounds or this and that. She is very, very...

And then our largest girl on the team also won the title up at Bismarck. And she's just a good wrestler. But we have 10 girls now and they're all have won matches, and it's just getting better and better.

We've got to do a better job of recruiting girls. Girls are kind of reluctant, some of "ah..." I think, the fact that some of our girls had success and hopefully they'll have success in the state meet, we might get some more girls out.

Craig Mattick: When did you start thinking about stepping away as the head wrestling coach in Watertown?

Marv Sherrill: When I got cancer.

Craig Mattick: How tough was that?

Marv Sherrill: I got cancer and I just had the bail out of everything. They said I had cancer in my bladder. No, I never did smoke or drink. And one of the boys said, "Maybe you should've drank, Coach. You might not got cancer in your bladder. Who knows?"

And that's when I decided I'd better back off. Well then I just plain hung it up. Now I come back and help with football and help with wrestling and help with golf. And they like me because I'm free. I'm just volunteer labor.

So it's worked out well for me and I really enjoy working with the kids. And I like coaching. And the nice thing about not being a head coach is there's no pressure. I'm just assistant coach.

I think the worst thing in the world would be to be the head basketball coach in Watertown, because after going to a few quarterback club meetings, you listen to people talk, and obviously everybody knows more than the coach does, the basketball coach. So I like my jobs. I've never had anybody challenge me. I think if someone challenge me with wrestling, I say, "Well let's go in the mat and wrestle and we'll see what you know," and that sort of thing.

But anyway, that's what I do. And I really still enjoy being with the kids. I don't feel 80 years old. You just stay young when you're working with kids.

Craig Mattick: It was shortly after you had stepped down as head coach that you joined me as the wrestling analyst for the State Wrestling Tournament. I know it's hard for wrestling coaches to stay seated during a match, but not once during that broadcast did you stand up, grab my arm or grab my head or anything, about the match. That experience was fun. I had a great time with you that time.

Marv Sherrill: Well, it was fun and I'm glad they were promoting wrestling a little more. We still need... Well face it, the average boy, given the chance, would make the basketball team. That's something we face, that's reality. So we got to do everything we can to promote our sport.

I think the football coaches would love it if everybody wrestled because wrestlers make good defensive football players. They can handle their body very well. They're quick reflexed. They make very good defensive football players.

Craig Mattick: We have so many South Dakota high school wrestlers over the years, who've moved on and they've wrestled in college, or they've become coaches in college. We even now have a few in the professional ranks, the mixed martial arts, the Devin Clark, Logan Storley, David Michaud, just to name a few. What do you think about those guys now? They wrestled in South Dakota and now they're professionals.

Marv Sherrill: But you think about professional wrestling, hey that's acting. You're going to stand there while some guy runs across the ring, bounces off a rope and runs into you. It's not going to happen.

But it's funny the way fans get all excited, thinking it's real; it's not. But good for them, if they can make a living doing that, good for them. Because if you think about it, after you get out of college, there's not a lot of demand for wrestling as a sport, except for that.

Craig Mattick: You look at Logan Storley, he's had to learn how to box so that he can be a part of this mixed martial arts. Because you know he can wrestle.

Marv Sherrill: Yeah. Well I tell you what though, if you're a good wrestler, and you can move in and ground pound him. You can take him down, you know what to do. But I wouldn't be tough enough. I don't like to box. I'd have to grab him right away and hope I don't get hit in the face.

So no, but it's a good way to make a living because you're not going to do it, there's no amateur wrestling that pays so more power to him. Shoot.

Craig Mattick: Marv, you're in multiple hall of fames, you're in the South Dakota Wrestling coaches Hall of Fame, you're in the South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame. What does that all mean to you?

Marv Sherrill: Means they must've had a shortage of good nominees or something. No, it's nice to be honored by your fellow coaches. And like right now, I still get to coach. I'm 80 years old. I'm glad they let me coach. I'm flattered they still let me coach up there.

So no, it's a nice honor. I saved the clipping of that and I'm that... But it is a nice honor and you want to thank your fellow coaches. Probably was around so long that... Plus I got to coach in Watertown. And we've always had a good string of good athletes.

I don't care how good you are. I remember 1980, I had a wonderful bunch of kids, but they weren't athletes. They were just great kids. And we lost our first 15 matches. And we finally... I think we beat Madison. It was the longest year of my life. My deal on them was too, I wouldn't get my hair cut until we won a match. I've always had crew cuts, so I had hair down over my ears. But they were just great kids, they weren't particularly good athletes.

Craig Mattick: 35 years as the head coach at Watertown, over 500 duel wins and eight state titles. When you think about it, what do you think about the most when you reflect on that Arrow wrestling career?

Marv Sherrill: Well, the thing is just a matter of Arrow... They always would tell them, "You're the Watertown Arrows. You go out on the mat and you attack. And you make them worry about what you're doing. Because you're a Watertown Arrow and that means something."

And it's a psychological advantage. "You're a Watertown Arrow and you step on the mat and you go get them." That's what I always told the kids. And that's what I always thought.

You think about it, Watertown Arrow football is good, track has been good. I like mine, and I like the way it worked, and I chose the right sport for myself. And I was fortunate enough to have an unlimited supply of good wrestlers.

And now we got to build the girls program up. We only have 10 of them, but two of them are very good. The other seven or the other eight, they're getting better.

And think about it, it is... You forget about they're girls, they will route wrestle just like it. So yeah, it's been a good life and I enjoy it. And like I said, I'm glad they still let me show up and coach.

Craig Mattick: If you like what you're hearing, please give us a five star review wherever you get your podcasts. Programs such as this are only possible through the continued support of our listeners, like you.

For South Dakota Public Broadcasting, I'm Craig Mattick. Join us again on the next episode of In Play.

Nate Wek is currently the sports content producer and sports and rec beat reporter for South Dakota Public Broadcasting. He is a graduate of South Dakota State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism Broadcasting and a minor in Leadership. From 2010-2013 Nate was the Director of Gameday Media for the Sioux Falls Storm (Indoor Football League) football team. He also spent 2012 and 2013 as the News and Sports Director of KSDJ Radio in Brookings, SD. Nate, his wife Sarah, and three sons, Braxan, Jordy, and Anders live in Canton, SD.