IMA SPORTS

It wasn’t too long ago that Maumee wrestling rolled through two straight Northern Lakes League seasons as back-to-back undefeated champions.

Pete Schlegel was a big part of those successes, winning three individual titles, and now as the head coach of the Panthers program, he’s looking to bring it back to those glory days.

“Giving back to the community and the sport was really the driving force behind me even thinking about taking over the program,” Schlegel said.

“My work schedule allowed it. My family life allowed it. Wrestling has always been a love of mine. It was always, when I have the opportunity to come back and do this and really commit to it, I want to.

“I want everyone to know, my mission is to bring us back to winning again. It’s creating a different culture inside that wrestling room. As soon as you change that, the culture on the mat when we’re competing on the mat in front of everybody changes quickly too.”

Schlegel will be the next Maumee head coach, pending board approval, succeeding Brian Buck. A 2009 Maumee graduate, Schlegel was an assistant coach at Rossford ten years ago. He came back to the Panthers program last year as an assistant coach.

His role quickly changed early in the season, when Buck had to step away from coaching for medical reasons. Schlegel said the kids responded extremely well to him and some of the changes he made.

“I don’t know what I was putting down, I was really following Brian’s lead, but whatever I was putting down, they were picking up,” Schlegel said.

Buck noticed the changes in the wrestling room when he returned, and the two coaches had a conversation midway through the season about Schlegel taking over the varsity program and Buck possibly going to the middle school program.

“When Brian came back, he said, ‘I don’t know what you did, but whatever you’re doing, that’s what head coaches do,’” Schlegel said. “He was encouraging in the fact that he would step down so that I could take the opportunity, just with the way the kids were responding to what I was doing.”

Schlegel also thinks his relative youth serves him well in his role as a coach. During practices, he will lace up his wrestling shoes and hit the mats with his athletes, not just telling them what to do but showing as well.

While he isn’t afraid of getting injured, he did admit to coming home sore

“I think why I got such a buy-in from the athletes last year was because I put my shoes on every day, too, and I would run the drills and I would roll with them,” Schlegel said. “If I’m going to be a coach and be hard on you and to trust me, I’m going to wrestle you every day so you know what I’m telling you works. There’s going to be a level of trust there.”

Obviously, Schlegel isn’t just another coach taking over the program. He was coached by legendary coach Ken Walczak, who won four NLL titles, with Buck as an assistant.

When Schlegel returned to the Maumee program last year, he immediately recognized what Buck was doing.

“I feel like I’m continuing the mentality or how they do things because that’s how I was taught,” Schlegel said. “I feel like I’m keeping the lineage going, especially Walczak with how he set the tone and how the team is supposed to carry themselves and the attitude. I feel like I’m picking up the torch and keeping it going.”

Schlegel also recognizes the close connection between wrestling and football programs at high schools everywhere. He wants to translate the success Evan Karchner has had with the football team into the wrestling program.

It should be an easy sell, too. The skills learned on a wrestling mat translate onto the football field. Schlegel recalled a conversation with Bryson Bonds-Crawford, an All-Northern Buckeye Conference linebacker and district-qualifying wrestler last year, when he told Schlegel how much learning double-leg takedowns in wrestling would have helped him with tackling.

“I think wrestling and football, it’s a no brainer,” Schlegel said. “It’ll take a little bit, but Evan knows how much it goes hand-in-hand. Knowing that there’s going to be someone there at the wrestling program that he can trust to send his guys that way, to say, ‘You know what? I trust coach Pete is going to train and make you better as a football player on the wrestling mat.’”

Photo courtesy of Pride of the Panthers
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