In Honor of Rich Nitsch: Senior Wins the Rich Nitsch Service Academics Wrestling Scholarship

Senior Wade Fugitt felt his eyes water as he made his way up to the cafeteria podium.

All he had to do was hold the trophy long enough to take a few photos before letting his emotions take over.

Fugitt had just won the first ever Rich Nitsch Service Academics Wrestling Scholarship.

“This award goes to someone who wrestled with Coach Nitsch in eighth grade, became the team manager while recovering from an injury and volunteered to be an assistant coach at Indian Hills Middle School,” announced Kansas City Wrestling Club Coach Marc Erickson.

Fugitt had been following along with every detail about the award’s mystery recipient in Erickson’s speech, and to his surprise, each one described him.

When Erickson announced Fugitt as the winner — and it was all he could do to hold back his tears while he posed for pictures, hoisting the trophy in the air.

“It’s a lot easier for me to cope [with Coach Nitsch’s death] just knowing that we’re keeping his memory alive this way,” Fugitt said.

The Rich Nitsch Service Academics Wrestling Scholarship was created this year by his friends and family to commemorate Rich Nitsch, the late Indian Hills Middle School and Kansas City Wrestling Club wrestling coach who passed in 2018.

Service, academics and wrestling were three of the biggest components in Nitsch’s life, so a $6,000 scholarship for a young wrestler who lived by those core values seemed fitting, according to Erickson. The scholarship recipient also had to have wrestled with Nitsch as their coach at Indian Hills and continued wrestling through high school.

“[Fugitt’s] just been really unanimous among the coaches,” Erickson said. “He was an easy choice because he is somebody who’s really been dedicated to wrestling.”

Nitsch coached Fugitt in eighth grade at Indian Hills and KCWC. Fugitt was never the best wrestler on the team, but Nitsch always cared more about everyone’s well-being than he ever cared about their performance on the mat, according to East’s head wrestling Coach Chip Ufford.

“Nitsch believed in him, and when you have somebody that believes in you, that makes a world of difference in everything you do,” Fugitt’s mom Robin Fugitt said.

Thanks to Nitsch, every wrestler always had a ride to and from practice — whether he personally drove them or found them a ride. He even set up a tutoring program to help his athletes succeed in the classroom.

“He put more time into helping us than coaching even though we did do really well with him as our coach,” Fugitt said. “He had a ‘you first, team second’ attitude.”

Fugitt only doubted Nitsch’s unwavering dedication once.

At the eighth grade wrestling banquet, Nitsch — a retired FBI agent — decided to give out FBI challenge coins to reward wrestlers for their hard work and instill confidence in them. Nitch gave everyone FBI coins, except Fugitt, whose coin he forgot at his house.

Fugitt thought Nitsch had completely forgotten about it after a few months had gone by. Then one day, he pulled Fugitt to the side at KCWC practice and gave him the coin along with a handwritten letter.

“The letter said how proud he was of me for getting through the whole season and wrestling for those two years in middle school,” Fugitt said. “It was a bittersweet moment.”

Throughout high school, Fugitt wrestled through all the highs and lows that came with the sport.

Of course it was exhilarating when he cheered on a teammate fighting hard at an all-day tournament or won a match in front of a huge crowd of enthusiastic parents. But there were many days when Fugitt sat in class and considered not going to practice, knowing he’d get yelled at by his coaches and pinned down again.

Every time he showed up anyway — not just to prove to himself that he could do it, but also for Nitsch. Nitsch’s passing during Fugitt’s sophomore year made him seriously consider not finishing out his high school wrestling career.

“I was like, ‘I don’t know if I really want to keep doing this,’” Fugitt said. “Then I just thought about what I’d be doing if he were still here. So I made it my focus to wrestle for him and do it because he’d want me to.”

As a result, Fugitt won 16 of his 25 matches this year and finished second in a tournament for the first time.

“Fugitt’s definition of champion this year as a senior was to finish the season, finish the season healthy and finish the season wrestling,” head wrestling Coach Chip Ufford said.

Now that wrestling season is over, Fugitt’s slowly moving on from the sport. He plans on using the scholarship money to help pay for his Johnson County Community College tuition as he pursues his childhood dream of becoming a firefighter. 

“I think [Coach Nitsch] would have liked that I want to help the community and give back like he did,” Fugitt said.