On the Mat: The wrestling team bonds through pre-season training

It’s 11 a.m. on a Tuesday in the blistering July heat. Senior John Gagen isn’t sleeping in until 10 a.m. or shuttling around nanny kids. Instead, he still finds himself driving to school and walking through the same entrance doors during the school year.

Except this time, he heads straight to the wrestling gym.

No, Gagen’s not spending hours on the mats seeking a final physical education requirement before graduation. In the gym, Gagen and other current and past SM East students choose to all gather together for the same thing — pre-season wrestling training, even when it’s not required.

“It's always nice to see some of the older guys in the room again,” Gagen said. “Brady Fankhauser, who graduated in 2022, or one of the assistant coaches, Kevin Ecker, will come back and beat the crap out of me. So that's cool.”

Through months of pre-season training, the wrestling team has prepared for the first meet of the season, scheduled for Dec. 5, and has experienced early success and ratings.

Two athletes in particular, sophomore Lucy Bircher and Gagen, have been pre-season ranked by Kansas Wrestling Coaches Association, which bodes well for their regular-season performance, according to Gagen. In the Nov. 11 pre-season rankings, Gagen was ranked fourth in the 175-pound boys division, and Bircher was ranked sixth in the 170-pound girls division.

Pre-season rankings, a list of the top wrestlers in the state based off of their previous season’s success, and the practice that goes into them contributes to overall readiness for tryouts and the first meet, according to head coach Chip Ufford. Ufford keeps records of which positions wrestlers were struggling with in the prior season to track improvement over the off-season.

“There are positions that we identified at the end of last season that they're struggling with,” Ufford said. “Once we get into tournaments, if I still see that area as a weakness, I'm like, ‘Well, how much do you work on that this offseason?’
But if I see improvement, then I'll let them know and work on elevating their view from there.”

Along with Gagen’s everyday summer drives to the SM East gym, he’s also participated in pre-season club training, freestyle Greco — Olympic style wrestling — tournaments held in Mill Valley, Kansas and nationally-qualifying club tournaments.

Bircher, on the other hand, has participated in open gyms at various Shawnee Mission high schools and stuck to strict weight-lifting and dieting plans as a training regimen.

“I try to stay on a good diet the entire season,” Bircher said. “I never really want to go off [a diet] for wrestling, just to be healthier. I feel a lot better in the season.”

Ufford’s motto for the program is to “build champions on and off the mat.” To Ufford, this means being a stronger wrestler, as well as a strong student. In fact, he’s already started monitoring the wrestlers' grades through Skyward to keep tabs on them when they’re not in the wrestling gym.

“You set yourself a goal, work towards that goal, you achieve that goal and you're being the best version of yourself, which is a champion,” Ufford said. “That's different for every single kid. They’re just doing what they need to do to be the best version of themselves.”

For Bircher and Gagen, the motto is what’s kept them showing up to pre-season training, even when it’s not required. The SM East wrestling culture, according to Gagen, encourages athletes to be strong wrestlers and also good people and teammates.

“My favorite memories are the kids that just keep showing up,” Ufford said. “We have our open mats and those ones that just keep showing up and getting on the mat, that makes me smile every time I see it because it's not something that I'm telling them to do.
When they do it on their own they're helping themselves get better, but they're also helping their teammates get better.”