Craig Mattick:
Welcome to another edition of In Play. I'm Craig Mattick. Today's guest set a national record for career wins in high school. A four-time champion over five years. He wrestled only one year at South Dakota State University, but today he is a head wrestling coach, a position that he says he's always wanted to do. He's the former Garretson Blue Dragon and now the head wrestling coach for the Parkston Trojans, Dan Bonte. Dan, welcome to In Play.
Dan Bonte:
Hey, thanks a lot, Craig. Thanks for thinking of me and I really appreciate all that you guys are bringing to the sport. It's good to have that opportunity now for folks to tune in, so I appreciate all you do with that.
Craig Mattick:
Twenty-three years ago you won your first of four high school wrestling titles at Garretson. You were an eighth grader at the time, and here you are today, a high school wrestling coach at Parkston.
When did the spark of wrestling come to you, Dan?
Dan Bonte:
You know I think it started at an early age. I grew up part of my younger childhood in Minnesota, and then I just kind of got started there and just fell in love with it. I don't even know what it was specifically other than being able to be by yourself on a mat and compete against somebody else.
But yeah, I just fell in love with it early and then we moved back to my parents' hometown of Garretson. I believe I was a second-grader, and it just kind of continued on from there and I was fortunate enough to have a lot of buddies that shared my same passion for wrestling, and I think that helped propel that forward and keep the interest in it at a high level kind of at all times.
Craig Mattick:
What did you know about the wrestling program in Garretson when you were just getting out of elementary school because you were already on the varsity as an eighth grader?
Dan Bonte:
I knew that in the early nineties and even in the past, I had uncles that kind of excelled and family members that had good careers in wrestling, but Garretson, I think under the direction of Al Bauer, had some really good teams and my dad made sure to let me know who that was, and a lot of those guys were still around there.
And then in fact, some of them actually ended up coming in and coaching that I looked up to. But then I think first and foremost, Coach Jason Bull, who's still helping out there more in an assistant role now, but he was just such an easy guy to wrestle hard for and work hard for.
Craig Mattick:
What did you learn from Coach Bull?
Dan Bonte:
Everything. I mean, as far as working as hard as possible, having a good attitude, effort was the key. His big thing was, "Hey, let's go get a loss. Let's go get you a loss."
Craig Mattick:
Wow.
Dan Bonte:
It's not always about wins and losses, it's about how you can improve and a lot of times, losses are the best way to improve, and he was big on that. So, we did a lot of bumping around and did a lot of that stuff. I think that had a lot to do with my improvements, I guess, and my whole team for that matter as far as where Garretson and got to and continue to get to.
Craig Mattick:
Well, sports was pretty big in the Bonte household. Of course, you have Nick and Brady as your brothers. Nick did win, I think, a state wrestling title, if I remember.
Dan Bonte:
Yep.
Craig Mattick:
I'm trying to remember Brady. Was Brady a wrestler too?
Dan Bonte:
He was, yeah. He was real solid. Both of those two have quite a bit more talent than I ever had, God-given wise, and a lot more size. A lot of folks can't hardly believe that I'm the big brother. But yeah, Brady placed four years. I believe he was a freshman at 160. I was a freshman at 112, and so he was kind of the biggest. He was my youngest brother. And then yeah, Nick placed four times as well and was a two-time finalist and a state champ.
So yeah, those guys had a lot of ability and more than just wrestling too and fun to grow up with those guys.
Craig Mattick:
Yeah, I'm just thinking right now there were probably a couple of broken lamps at the Bonte household with the boys always wrestling going on. Was that going on?
Dan Bonte:
Yeah, there was. I honestly stayed out of that for the most part. It was more of those two. But yeah, there was some different... My mom came home to some different picture arrangements downstairs that may or may not have been covering holes in the wall and things of that nature that they found out a lot later than they would've liked to find out about.
So yeah, that was definitely... The competition was high amongst us three and primarily in a positive way. But yeah, we always competed against one another no matter what we were doing.
Craig Mattick:
So, you wrestled as an eighth grader at 103, made it to state, you make the state tournament, which is a pretty eye-opening experience for a young kid from Garretson at that time.
Did you feel overwhelmed at that very first state wrestling tournament as an eighth grader?
Dan Bonte:
Not too bad. I actually made it as a seventh grader, and that was more when I was... That was more eye-opening. I did wrestle a senior twice at 103 as a seventh grader. I was fortunate enough; I had a pretty good draw and I just had a good day or a good tournament that day, and I was fortunate enough to place there, which really helped me going in as my eighth grade year already kind of having seen that and been through that process.
But as a seventh grader, I just had this... The whole team was awesome, but we had this group of four seniors that essentially were just phenomenal leaders that kind of took us all under their wing. It was one of those deals where you just didn't want to let them down in a good way. I mean, you wanted to work as hard as possible for them because you know that's the effort they were putting in. I attribute a lot of our success to those guys and that kind of propelled us. And Garretson has been good for a long time, don't get me wrong. I'm just kind of talking more about my experiences in there with them. But our group of guys that really propelled us and we found out the true way to be a leader along with Coach Bull and yeah, I can't thank those guys enough.
Craig Mattick:
That first state championship, who did you wrestle in the finals?
Dan Bonte:
I wrestled Josh Blinder, who I think I wrestled him six, eight times that year and many more in my career. A good wrestler, good human being as well. He's coaching over in McCook now and see him quite a bit, and it's kind of crazy coming full circle, seeing our kids at tournaments together and so forth. But yeah, he had a phenomenal year that year as well.
Craig Mattick:
2002; I'm assuming you're pretty confident during the season after coming off a state championship. You get back to the state tournament and you get matched up with Shane Suterra of Bonham in the semi-finals. Suterra won the match; six, nothing. What happened with that match?
Dan Bonte:
He was a phenomenal wrestler. To this day, he coaches over in Bonham and he's a really good friend of mine. He took it to me plain and simple. I wasn't ready to wrestle. He was probably better than me. We argue about this as friends and so forth, but he was more ready than me. I was probably a little bit more timid. He was a real physical wrestler and he had a phenomenal career over in Bon Homme, and he took it to me plain and simple, and he took care of business. We still joke about that today.
Craig Mattick:
Yeah, he eventually got the championship that year, but what was the biggest thing you learned from that match?
Dan Bonte:
That's a great question. I think it's about not wrestling to lose and wrestling to win. I'm not saying if I'd have wrestled a different way I'd beat Shane that day, but I just wrestled more not to lose than I did to just go out after it to see what happened. We preach to our kids now. I mean, don't be afraid to fail. Go out there and let it rip. Whether you lose by six or one or 15, a loss is a loss. So, from that point on, I'm just like, "I'm not going to wrestle scared anymore. I'm going to let it rip and see what happens." And that gives an individual their best chance to win a match.
Craig Mattick:
Well, for the next three years, Dan, you didn't lose much at all. You go on to win 130 matches in a row. 2003, your sophomore year, you're now wrestling at 119. What was the adjustment like for you going from 103 as an eighth grader to 112 as a freshman and now 119 as a sophomore? What was the big adjustment, if any?
Dan Bonte:
Yeah, when you get a little bit older, you start getting into the sophomore, junior years. I was a little bit littler. I think it makes a little bit bigger difference when you get up in the middle weights and upper weights if you're younger, but there definitely is a difference. You're wrestling... You can wrestle some upper class women and so forth that are maybe a little bit more mature.
I had great practice partners and I actually was going to go 125 that year, but from a team standpoint, we all kind of went down and it worked out. And that's kind of the beauty of wrestling there too. That was a fun year. We did some stuff as a team, which to this day I'm prouder about getting to compete in state duals as a team and get everybody there that works every day and makes each other better. So, that was a really fun year.
Craig Mattick:
Yeah, you racked up, I think, 47 wins that year. Sophomore year you get to the state finals again, and this time it's Grande from Bon Homme who you wrestled. You win at 6-1, your second title. What was that championship match like for you?
Dan Bonte:
Oh, it was a tough match. I mean, Josh was a great wrestler in his own right and things just went my way that day and he had a great career and a great season there too. I knew it was going to be a battle, but just looking back at that prior year, I just told myself going out there, I was going to let it rip and see what happens. And fortunately that year I came out on top.
Craig Mattick:
Wow. So, you got two titles now, four years of wrestling from seventh grade through your sophomore year. Was wrestling twenty-four hours a day for you? How did you spend your time with wrestling?
Dan Bonte:
In season it was a dedication. I mean, if you're going to do it right in my mind, you got to live it throughout the season. I mean, I know it's really kind of migrated to wrestling year round, and I'm still not necessarily... I love wrestling as much as anybody, but I still see a lot of value in all the other sports that you compete in.
So, during wrestling season, I was locked in. I did a lot of extra stuff. I did a lot of running with Coach Bull and my teammates and just in fear that, "Hey, I don't want to ever leave any doubt. I don't want to regret not putting everything I have into it every year," and I could feel all right with myself. I gave everything I had and didn't come out on top. There wouldn't be any regrets. And that's kind of how I approached it during the wrestling season and outside of it. But like I said, I really valued baseball, golf, football, and the friendships that you have amongst those different sports too. But yeah, primarily during wrestling, I was locked in and focused on that.
Craig Mattick:
How would you describe yourself as a wrestler and did it change at all those years you wrestled for the Blue Dragons?
Dan Bonte:
I guess I would like to think that I was a guy that just let it rip and really wanted to score as many points as possible. Constant fear isn't the right way to put it, but I just was never comfortable with any lead that I had until the match was over. My thought was the more points you score, the better chance you have to get your hand raised at the end. So, I was a guy that just had a high motor looking back at it and tried to score as many points in any position as possible and kind of see where it went from there.
Craig Mattick:
Well, you certainly scored a lot of points, over 1,400 points you scored for your team, which I still think is number three all time nationally, which that's says a lot.
Dan Bonte:
Really? Yeah, I guess, I don't know. I don't know about that stuff, but yeah, I just... Scoring points is fun. I want wrestling to be fun for fans to watch and things and scoring points just like anything else in baseball or football or whatever, when you're scoring points, it's a lot more enjoyable to watch.
Craig Mattick:
Dan, you jumped a couple of weight classes for your junior year. You're up to 135 and again, undefeated, state finals, and this time it's a matchup with Derek Copal of Wagner. I think you faced him quite a few times in your career.
Dan Bonte:
Yeah, I did. I know for a fact I wrestled him my freshman year at the state tournament, and he was just a hard out. I mean, with Derek you had to wrestle just like with most folks, but he was kind of an exception. You had to wrestle six minutes hard the whole time. I mean, he was going to come at you. He had a lot of pride in his conditioning and he was just a really tough kid, a really good kid. Yeah, I knew he was going to come at me and I respect that tremendously. He had a great career over in Wagner as well.
Craig Mattick:
Things ere working great though for you that day because you won in a decision 12 to one; you scored quite a few points against a pretty good wrestler.
Dan Bonte:
Things kind of fell my way and not taking anything away from Derek. I mean, that match could have been different if we wrestled it 10 times, but for whatever reason, things were kind of clicking in all positions that day. Once again, I knew he was going to come at me for six minutes, so I just had the foot on the gas pedal mentality until the final whistle blew to score as many points as possible.
Craig Mattick:
What kind of wrestling camps did you attend during your high school career?
Dan Bonte:
So, when I was younger, I always did the local camps in Garretson and so forth. And then I think my parents wanted me to wait until I was a little bit older before I really ventured out. But once again, I had some really awesome older mentors, if you will, that I spoke about earlier that went to camps. I was fortunate enough to go to Iowa Wrestling Camp my fifth and sixth grade year. We brought a cool crew down there, and that was a real eye-opening experience for me.
You think you're pretty solid at wrestling, and then you go and see some other guys in other states and you're like, "Okay," and you always know you got work to do. But man, it really opened my eyes to that and it was a really good experience for me and for the rest of my teammates.
And then from there on, I tried to get into some team camps with our guys. We did one of those every summer and messed around a little bit with the freestyle stuff, but I never really completely pulled the trigger on that, and that's one of the regrets I have. I wish I would've looked into that a little bit more. But once again, as I mentioned before, I loved the sport of baseball and golf and that kind of thing, so I did some of that as well. But yeah, I always tried to get into some camps every year and try something different from year to year as well.
Craig Mattick:
Before your senior year at Garretson, who were some of the other wrestlers that you looked up to that maybe you had some friendships with? Maybe not, maybe they were across the state, didn't see them that often, but did you have other wrestlers that you really looked up to during that time?
Dan Bonte:
Oh, man. It'd be hard to name just a few because I looked up to so many of those guys. I was fortunate my dad was bringing me to the high school state tournament from when I was a third-grader on, and I just... I'll never forget those memories.
I mean, we would leave Saturday morning and watch wrestling all day in Aberdeen or wherever it was, or Watertown and drive all the way back. I can remember watching the Hesix and the Ronics and the Denkys and all those guys when I was a lot younger. And then when I got into it into high school, I really built a really awesome friendship with a lot of guys. But it was specifically a great friendship with Derek Perner and Grayson Perner. We did a lot of staying at each other's houses-
Craig Mattick:
Out at Elk Point.
Dan Bonte:
... working out and-
Craig Mattick:
Elk Point.
Dan Bonte:
Yep.
Craig Mattick:
Down there, yeah.
Dan Bonte:
Yep, so we... And to this day, we're extremely close. And yeah, I value those guys a lot. But like I said, I can't just put all my value in them, but those are two guys that really, I spent a lot of time along with all my teammates. I mean, all the Garretson guys too, we were all really close with those guys, and it was really fun.
Craig Mattick:
Your senior year, you already have won three state titles. At the time, there were only six wrestlers in the history of Class B wrestling to win four titles. You racked up 130 wins in a row and then comes a loss, matchup versus Ryan Kocher of Wagner. He's a freshman. What happened that with that match?
Dan Bonte:
Well, first and foremost, he was really good and-
Craig Mattick:
It turned out pretty-
Dan Bonte:
... a phenomenal human being as well. I have an outrageous amount of respect for him. He actually bumped up and wrestled, or no, actually I think he might've lost. He cut down weight to make that match happen. To be flat out honest, Ryan was an incredible wrestler. I kind of got caught off guard. I gave up three five point moves in the match, and people still talk about that match. It doesn't bother me because it made me better and I lost to a really awesome human being and a great wrestler. To this day, we're really good friends. And yeah, it's a match I'll never forget, right, wrong or indifferent, and obviously I wish I would've came out on the right end of that, but I think sometimes... I don't know if this is the case or not, but you may get a little bit too comfortable at times or get a little lackadaisical. He showed me that, Hey, you can't do that when you're wrestling. Very, very impressive wrestlers and he came out on top that day.
Craig Mattick:
When did that happen during the season? Was it early, midway through, or later in the season?
Dan Bonte:
Actually, it was at State Dual, so it was probably that third weekend of January because when it happened and outside of our match... I mean, that was just a really fun duel with Wagner. It came down to a lot of close matches and yeah, it was a lot of fun.
Craig Mattick:
That was a point when we had the state duels for a while. It went away for a while, but now it's back and I'm hoping that it's going to continue to catch on.
Dan Bonte:
Yeah, I think duals don't get as much of a following as they should, and I think the state's doing a good thing getting that back in there. They're trying something different this year where they're having a different weekend than the the individual state tournament. I think we're going to see a lot of really cool match ups that a lot of fans will really love to see.
Wrestling is an individual sport, but I tell the guys all the time, I would forfeit about anything to win something as a team together. And that allows that to happen outside of the individual state championship. And there's nothing more enjoyable than duals and going to battle with your guys and every match counts, and I think it's a really underrated aspect of wrestling, in my opinion.
Craig Mattick:
Dan, even before your senior year at the state wrestling tournament, you'd already had over 260 wins in your career. You were approaching some national records for career wins. What was your attitude like going into that state tournament your senior year?
Dan Bonte:
My attitude never changed. Be true to who you are and you're no better than anybody else, and you can always lose. And that showed that senior year and that loss wasn't because I thought I was better. I just got maybe a little bit too comfortable in certain positions and so forth, but I always knew people were coming for you.
Every match you have to treat the same no matter who you're wrestling. I can tell you every match I ever wrestled, I had the same butterflies in my stomach as the next one. Whether I was wrestling an underclassman that was just getting going or an animal, my mentality was be yourself, score points, anybody can be beaten. And that was proven.
Craig Mattick:
Well, you're in the finals against Jonathan Wermers from Parkston, and you win by a fall. Your last high school match, you win by fall and set a high school national record for career wins with 268. Did that mean anything to you at the time?
Dan Bonte:
It did. I mean, it did. You don't get in the sport to set records, but I think the thing that it meant most to me is all the blood, sweat, and tears and all the brothers that helped a guy achieve something like that meant everything to me.
So, it wasn't necessarily about the record, it was about how I got there with the coaches and teammates and friendships and parental support and friend support that I had to get to that level. It was pretty surreal. It didn't really hit home right away. But I can also tell you we were really fortunate to wrestle tons of matches and not all schools have that ability to do that. And also I was fortunate to stay healthy, and that's a huge part of wrestling. I got really lucky, honestly, that I was able to stay healthy for six years and get a lot of matches.
Craig Mattick:
By the way, Dan, since you set the mark in 2005 with 268 wins, 13 other wrestlers have passed you, unfortunately.
Dan Bonte:
Yep.
Craig Mattick:
Really not surprising on how big wrestling is now. The record, by the way, is 422 career wins.
Dan Bonte:
Wow.
Craig Mattick:
Athlete from Alabama, and that was over six years as well, which is expected.
Dan Bonte:
Sure. Yep.
Craig Mattick:
So you didn't have any significant injuries in high school?
Dan Bonte:
Fortunately, I didn't. I had little bumps and bruises like everybody had. I think I maybe missed one tournament because I had influenza. So yeah, I mean the sickness part of it, I got lucky with too, with things that go around all the time. I think I had a minor rib injury, but other than that, I didn't have anything real detrimental to be able to wrestle.
I did tear my labrum when I went to Disney Duals in my shoulder the summer my junior year. But as luck would have it didn't bother me one iota in wrestling. It was more throwing a baseball. So I got real lucky in that sense.
Craig Mattick:
I forgot that we had the Disney Duals a few years back. The best wrestlers out of South Dakota going down to Disney to take on others across the country. And what was that experience like?
Dan Bonte:
It was incredible. It was an experience I'll never forget. I mean, I was fortunate enough to have two of my teammates and my best friends on the team. Coach Bull actually got to coach us too. It was an incredible experience. We got to have camp and Garretson and then we got to travel over to Orlando with a bunch of really good dudes and do a sport that we loved and got to have a lot of fun while we were doing it, and we had some success as well.
I would recommend that to anybody. I mean, you got to see some phenomenal wrestling. You got to be with other really awesome human beings from other towns in your same state and be on a team with those folks. And yeah, I'll never forget that the rest of my life, that's for sure.
Craig Mattick:
You only wrestled one year at South Dakota State. That was back in 2007. Why was it only one year?
Dan Bonte:
So, I actually had a red shirt year in the 2005, 2006 year. I found out how much better a guy could get when you're surrounded by other collegiate athletes. Not that I didn't in high school, but you get into the next level and you find out you aren't really the guy until you put all the work in and make adjustments and so forth. So, I had a pretty solid red shirt year. I think I was... I don't know, 19 and six or 19 and five or something, and pretty much came through unscathed that year. And then my red shirt freshman year, I wrestled about half the season and this is where my unfortunate injury happened, but we were out in the University of Wyoming and a guy did nothing but posted on my head and my whole body went numb and spent the night in the hospital over there and was pretty devastated.
I had a lot of nerve damage and went to three different spine specialists and just could never get cleared again due to some bulged discs in my neck, kind of going the wrong way. I was born with spinal stenosis, which means there's not a lot of space in there, which I had no clue about until that happened. But I did have stingers growing up a little bit, but nothing real severe. And that day, for whatever reason... It was a pretty rough experience, but it could always be worse. Coach Lyles at SDSU allowed me to stay on as part of the team and learn how to coach and get to be a part of that. I can't thank him enough for that. I got to learn so much from the coaching side of things for the rest of my career and got to watch the rest of my brothers do some incredible things on the mat.
Craig Mattick:
After college, you moved to Mitchell and you're working at Dakota Wesleyan and what was going on at that time?
Dan Bonte:
So, that was my first job after grad school. I went through and got my masters. I thought I wanted to be an athletic director, and that was kind of the goal. The first job I interviewed for was at Dakota Wesleyan and in the admissions department and ended up taking that, moved to Mitchell, bought a house and got a lot of great experience getting to recruit student athletes, which is kind of what I wanted to do anyway, and had a great experience there. I think I was there for six or seven years before I moved on and did some insurance stuff. But yeah, my time there was awesome and got to meet a lot of really cool people and work in athletics and in education.
Craig Mattick:
After all those years of being involved with wrestling, was it weird not really being involved at all with the sport you loved?
Dan Bonte:
It was. I was fortunate enough that I got asked to help coach youth in Parkston, so I was driving down to Parkston from Mitchell a couple of days a week. I did that for quite a few years. Ironically, my juniors that I have now were kind of the first guys that I worked with and they were kindergarten, first grade at that time. It's crazy to have them now in the high school room and watch them grow into men and good people. Yeah, I'm really grateful that I got the opportunity to coach youth for that long prior to moving into the high school ranks.
Craig Mattick:
Yeah. So, about 2017 is when you moved to Parkston. The reason for moving from Mitchell to Parkston was...
Dan Bonte:
My job, and I just had a lot of friendships in Parkston through my wife, and that's where she grew up. My college roommate, Ryan Meyer was from Parkston and just a really awesome individual. So, we just thought a smaller school system where we grew up in and to get into that and have the opportunity to have our kids kind of experience what we did. Nothing against bigger schools, but all I ever knew was kind of a smaller school, and that's kind of the direction I chose to go.
Craig Mattick:
So, it's about three years ago the Parkston wrestling job comes open. Was that an no-brainer for you to get involved with?
Dan Bonte:
Not necessarily. I had so much fun coaching youth. We just have such a great tradition in Parkston and that was established long before I was ever there. It's been there, it seems like, since the beginning of time, but we always... I mean, whenever you wrestle the Parkston guy, back when I was in Garretson youth and high school, you knew you were in for a battle and you knew their stands would be filled. And that's just such a cool situation to be a part of in both the youth and high school level.
But yeah, I did want to get into high school, but man did I have so much fun coaching the youth with such phenomenal youth coaches that I still look up to this day, and now I'm getting to coach a lot of their kids and it kind of went full circle. But yeah, it wasn't an easy decision, but at the end of the day, I feel like it was the right one. If I'm being honest, I still have the opportunity to coach youth now with my sons being in there and friends' kids and stuff. They haven't completely cut the cord from me yet, but I still get the opportunity to coach both to some capacity, and I'm really appreciative for those individuals that allow me to do that.
Craig Mattick:
You've been quoted as saying that you preach basic fundamentals. What are some of those skills which are so important for wrestling?
Dan Bonte:
Yeah, I think people forget about the basics at times, and it can become repetitive and monotonous at times when you're focusing on stance in motion and you're focusing on level changes and different tie-ups and things like that. Call me and I love watching wow moves as much as the next guy. But yeah, I just think stance in motion and hand fighting and just a good old-fashioned single to a finish is going to win you most matches much like a simple stand-up. We preach to our guys be yourself and wrestle in a way that you enjoy wrestling and how you feel you can be most successful.
But yeah, basics are still at the forefront of all that, but they can all put their spin on it. And wrestling, you know this too, Craig, but it's really evolved in terms of scrambling and leg passing and tilting and things like that, which are really, really enjoyable to watch too. So yeah, we hit on a lot of that stuff too, but it all comes down to basics at the end of the day. You want to have a good toolbox full of basic moves before you move on to some other more risky moves, if you'll.
Craig Mattick:
I see you've got a triangular in Garretson this year. Have you been back at your alma mater with Parkston over the last couple of years?
Dan Bonte:
We actually were. We were there last year. Funny enough, we get to go back there again this year for the same triangular, and we're excited about it. I always love seeing all the people I grew up with and my parents be in there and brothers now, and so yeah, we're looking forward to that. We probably haven't got back enough. We did go to the to the Garretson Tournament one year over there, which was a lot of fun, and they ran a good tournament there too. So yeah, I'm always excited to get back to Garretson.
Craig Mattick:
I haven't been in the Blue Dragon gym in a while. Have they retired your singlet over there at Garretson?
Dan Bonte:
Oh, I think so. I don't think that thing's hanging around too much anymore. But yeah, it was a great program and I was really fortunate with... I mean, I talk about Parkston support and Garretson was the same. Everybody was in it for the right reasons from a team aspect and supporting one another, and that's not anything I'll ever forget either.
Craig Mattick:
Class B wrestling is so tough in South Dakota, of course, with Canton and Winner, Kimball White Lake, Plank Gettis. I mean, Parkston won three team titles 2013 through 2015. What is the way to compete and win team titles in Class B?
Dan Bonte:
You just have to have a really good core group of guys, which we do, but it's strength in numbers anymore. I mean, if you can fill a full lineup of guys that buy into what you're trying to preach and exercise that effort and attitude that we talk about a lot that they are bought into, good things happen.
You hit it on the head. There's a lot of really, really solid teams out there, which makes it a lot of fun. And Canton's had one heck of a run and Kimball... I shouldn't even start mentioning teams because I'll forget somebody, but there's just so many good wrestlers out there and good teams and good coaches and a lot of good people in the sport of wrestling first and foremost. It's fun to be able to compete against those guys and have friendships with them outside of that as well.
Craig Mattick:
Dan, more and more girls now going out for wrestling. It has expanded so much in South Dakota. How's the involvement with girls wrestling in Parkston right now?
Dan Bonte:
There hasn't been much, and we're very welcome and open to that. I thought we'd have a few this year and we just didn't. And that's okay. But it's also... We're wide open and excited for that when that time comes. I couldn't tell you why it hasn't come yet, but I think it will and when it does, we'll be excited and move forward just like the other programs that have that opportunity.
Craig Mattick:
I got two more questions for Dan Bonte. First of all, Dan, I've seen so many former wrestlers who become officials. Did you ever think about becoming an official in the sport?
Dan Bonte:
I did. I had... And I have a lot of friends that are now officials or past officials, and that's a hard job. In some cases, a thankless job. You got coaches that want what's best for their kids. You want fans that want what's best for their kids, and here you are out there by yourself trying try to do it the best way you can possible. We got some really good young refs and a good mix of older refs. I just stuck with the coaching side of things just because I was having so much fun with the youth and things of that nature and started having kids and so forth. And so, yeah, I thought about it, but we have such a good crop of refs in there now, and obviously-
Craig Mattick:
You didn't want to mess it up.
Dan Bonte:
... we can always use more. What's that?
Craig Mattick:
You didn't want to mess it up, right? Get in the way.
Dan Bonte:
I didn't want to mess it up, yeah. Right. Excuse me. But yeah, so I did think about it, but I think my true passion was coaching and I kind of stuck on that avenue.
Craig Mattick:
Last one for you, Dan. How do you sell the sport of wrestling to younger kids?
Dan Bonte:
I think it's a unique sport in that, not that kids make a habit of making excuses, but when you're out there on your own and you don't win, you can't really point a finger at anybody else. I feel like the grind of wrestling in that individual aspect and having to live it and be dedicated to it so much to be successful or to have fun more so. I think it just teaches you so much from a dedication standpoint and a work ethic standpoint. It teaches you so many life lessons along the way, not that other sports don't. It's just unique in the capacity that it demands of you, the demands that wrestling have. You need to be on your game every day, and you got to take care of yourself outside of the wrestling room and that kind of thing.
But I also think there's a value and doing multiple sports. I've always been an advocate of that. I think other sports help you, whether wrestling helps you become a great tackler in football, my brothers would both say, or how to use your hands or that sort of thing, or basketball or baseball or whatever. Track allows you to build that endurance or speed that you can use in other sports. And so I think it's to each their own. But I think wrestling just... It taught me so much about just life lessons of things that I use in my day-to-day life that I won't forget
Craig Mattick:
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