New Wrestling Coaches For JV and Varsity

The JV and varsity wrestling team undertook a complete coaching staff change for the winter season. The varsity head coach left and assistant coach, Bill Goodson, has taken over with assistant and East alumnus Zach Ortiz. Head football coach, Dustin Delaney, and assistant coach Chip Ufford took over JV.

Last year, Goodson was an assistant coach during his first year at East. This year is his 23rd year of coaching wrestling. He has spent 14 at SM West, with five as the head coach there. He is also a robotics and industrial technology teacher at Indian Hills Middle School.

The wrestling season started for both JV and varsity Nov. 14, with practices right after school every day. Due to the recent end of the football season, Delaney and Ufford attended their first JV practice on Nov. 22, with Goodson and Ortiz coaching in their place until then.

“[So far in practice] we have been working on stand-ups, switches and reviewing the basics,” Goodson said. “In the next weeks we will doing more pinning moves and escapes.”

A stand-up is a type of escape, when a wrestler stands-up extremely quickly while wriggling out of an opponent’s grip. Switches are when a wrestler attempts to switch around to the back of an opponent that has a hold on them.

Goodson plans to switch from doing high-risk moves, like head or arm throws — which were used by last years head coach Lucas Baker — to low-risk moves, like a single leg or double leg shoot. Both of these moves include grabbing/sweeping at an opponent’s arm/leg/head/arm to take them down.

“For our JV wrestlers that I was in control of, they were not ready for [high-risk moves],” Goodson said. “I saw some varsity players do [them] also, maybe some of them were ready for it, but from where I stood, we did not do a good job of it.”

Varsity wrestler junior Austin Wilson is in favor of what Goodson has been having them work on so far in practice, saying it is good for the experienced guys to perfect the basics.

According to Goodson, the main difference between being an assistant coach and a head coach is the amount of responsibility he has for both teams as well as being able to change the main things the team focuses on.

As an assistant to Goodson, Ortiz’s job is to alleviate some of these responsibilities. He is an East graduate from two years ago, and is familiar with many of the coach’s tactics.

The varsity team currently has 12 wrestlers out of the 14 needed with slots empty in both heavyweight and lightweight, according to Goodson.

The first varsity tournament was on the weekend of Dec. 3-4.

“I am hoping to place at least half of our team [in the tournament], whether it’s first, second, third or fourth and to build up our confidence up in this first small one for the next bigger tournaments,” said Goodson.

Ufford was previously the head varsity wrestling coach for between 2003 and 2013 but switched to JV because varsity required time that he did not have, according to Ufford.

“[JV] is less time commitment,” Ufford said. “I’m a football coach [too] – the season just ended – I’ve got two kids at home and I’m the head softball coach.”

The total number of wrestlers for JV is unknown at this time due to incoming football players who will soon join the ranks, as well as new players still joining the team, according to Ufford.

Delaney was previously an assistant wrestling coach at Hutchinson High School. However, this is his first year coaching wrestling at East, though he has been the head football coach for four years.

At the first practice, the JV team worked on stances, inside hand position, head position and duck-unders – the moves wrestlers do on their feet to get their opponent on their back. Because Ufford was not at the first week of practice, he is trying to add to what the players have already learned with Goodson and Ortiz.

“We are looking to teach the kids who have never wrestled before the stance,” Ufford said. “Your goal is: number one not [to] get pinned, number two wrestle all three periods, and number three win by points or try to pin them. So, that is what we are trying to accomplish.”

Both JV and varsity have been working on the basics of wrestling and slowly moving toward more complicated moves, which they put to the test at the first varsity and JV tournament.