Wrestling returns to Morningside for first time since 1978-79 season
By Jesse Claeys, Journal staff writer
The metal bleachers used for home wrestling meets at Morningside College are only three rows high.
But they were full last week with about 70 Mustang faithful as the grapplers tangled with the men of Dakota Wesleyan on a gym floor normally home to pick-up basketball games.
Two courts over in the field house, a white curtain separated the collegiate wrestling matches from a group of students who were busy shooting hoops.
Maybe the students were not used to seeing wrestling on the campus of the Morningside, a Sioux City college with about 1,000 full-time students. Before this year, the college hadn’t had a wrestling team since 1979.
Not that the head coach is counting.
“I really haven’t looked much into the past history of this program, “said Head Wrestling Coach Tim Jager.
Jager has talked to a few of the all-Americans who wrestled at Morningside in the ’70s, but that is about as far as his knowledge of the school’s wrestling history goes. The 31-year-old knows they had some success, but he also knows with different divisions, number of matches and lengths of seasons, comparing his Mustang squad to past, then-Chief squads is nearly impossible.
For Jager and the wrestling men of Morningside, the 2004-2005 season is a not a restart, it’s a rebirth.
“It is a fresh start, a new beginning in my mind, “Jager said. “I think a lot of people see it that way.”
His goal for the season was to have the team finish 8-8 in dual meets, a .500 record. Going into the contest against Dakota Wesleyan, the team was sitting at 8-7.
A $150,000 investment
Morningside President John Reynders said the decision to bring wrestling back to Morningside was part of a long-range plan in place at the school. In addition to wrestling, men’s and women’s golf and swimming programs were added in the past two years to give students additional opportunities on campus.
“Iowa is among the best states in the country in high school and college wrestling. It seemed like a natural for us to take a look at it and bring it back, “Reynders said.
In dollars, the decision to bring back wrestling meant $150,000 in start-up costs, Reynders said.
“It is more than just a wrestling team. We really believe investing those dollars is worth it. We think the student-athletes who are in that program are getting a first-rate experience.”
The first step was to hire a full-time head coach. In Jager they found a former wrestling stand-out at George-Little Rock High School and later at Buena Vista University, whose college career was cut short by a neck injury.
Jager arrived on campus in September 2003 and was given a year to organize the program. Two racquetball courts in the Hindman-Hobbs Recreation Center were converted to a wrestling practice room. Another became a strength training room. What was once the faculty locker room was transformed into one for the swimming and wrestling teams.
Jager painted Morningside logos on the walls of the new practice room. He ordered mats, uniforms and all the other items required for a legitimate program. By June 2004 almost everything was in place.
“I liked the part that I could start something new, being able to recruit and get the kids you want and get it going from scratch, “said Jager. “I was able to get things the way I wanted, the whole coaching philosophy and what type of program I wanted to run.”
The philosophy this year was “working hard, improving every day and staying positive, “the coach said. A person could say the motto this year was “laying the foundation, “a phrase printed on the back of the team’s gray T-shirts.
A different kind of veteran
“We feel like the old men, “said Kiel Ploen, a heavyweight wrestler for Morningside.
At 20, Ploen is one of the oldest wrestlers on the team. Sophomore, 133-pound wrestler Jake Thomas is the oldest at 22 and twins Jared and Jason Pickett were 17 when the season started.
Not that Jager, in his first year as a college head coach, could look to his sophomores for veteran leadership
None of the about 20 freshman and three sophomores on this year’s team had wrestled in college before the start of the season. Before November, Ploen hadn’t squared off on a padded mat since his state tournament qualifying season at Kingsley-Pierson High School in 2002.
“I was really nervous in the beginning. I didn’t know if I still had it, “said Ploen, whose record was at 12-14 late in the season.
After receiving a two-year degree from Western Iowa Tech Community College, Ploen wasn’t sure what direction to take in life. Eventually he made the decision to go after a four-year degree.
“I looked at colleges and I found out they started a wrestling program at Morningside. My cousin and I came here for a visit and I liked what I saw. I was like I guess I could wrestle and they gave me a little money to do it, “Ploen said.
It turned out to be a small world for Ploen. His cousin, Nathan Ploen, also enrolled at the college and signed on to wrestle. Jager’s assistant coach, Clinton Koedam, was Ploen’s high school coach.
“For the first year with everybody being freshmen and just a couple of sophomores, not even true sophomores, we’re having a really good year considering. It was a lot of hard work and we are really proud of it, “Ploen said.
Ploen is one of six Morningside wrestlers who qualified for the NAIA national tournament before the end of the season. Jake Stevenson, a freshman who qualified for nationals as a 174-pounder, said having a young team offers some advantages.
“Everyone of us is in the same situation, “said Stevenson, who took third in the Nebraska state tournament last year as a 171-pound senior at Boone Cental. “It’s also nice because you don’t have any upper upperclassmen beating on you.”
Stevenson was personally recruited by Jager, who called recruiting the toughest part of getting the program up and running.
Jager said the first step to getting wrestlers to come to Morningside was letting wrestlers know they actually had a program. The next step was to get the students excited about the rebirth of Morningside wrestling.
“I think a lot of the kids who came in saw it as a good opportunity to come in and get a lot of wrestling right away. I also think they saw it as an experience that would be fun and exciting because they were part of something new, “Jager said.
“I don’t think I would have made nationals at another school, “Stevenson said. “I wouldn’t have had the chance to be on varsity and I think that really helped my confidence right away in the beginning of the year. It helped me work harder in the practice room, “Stevenson said.
From the top down
When Morningside took on York College of Nebraska in December, it was a battle of two first-year programs. Morningside won the dual 52-6.
While Morningside enjoyed success on the mat, the York squad didn’t win a dual all season. York Head Coach Russ Dudrey called the season a “terrific start “to a new program, but pointed to injuries, illnesses, academic ineligibility as the reasons for the lack of wins. At some duals, the college, which has about 500 students, fielded as few as six or seven wrestlers.
“We started the season two deep in most weights, now we’re either one deep or zero deep, “Dudrey said.
Dudrey said Morningside has had a great start and is poised to become a power in the NAIA in years to come. He points to the coaches, Jager and Koedam, as the main reason.
“They are a credit to their college and to their sport, “Dudrey said.
Another person who thinks highly of the coaching staff at Morningside is Al Baxter, a 1969 graduate of Morningside and a member of the college’s M-Club Hall of Fame. Jager wrestled and later coached under Baxter at Buena Vista University.
“Tim is an outstanding wrestler and an outstanding person. You couldn’t ask for a better person to head the program. They’ll keep getting better and better, “Baxter said.
What was Baxter’s reaction to the team hovering around the .500 mark in duals this season?
“Fantastic. Absolutely outstanding.”
What about the college president’s?
“It’s great, isn’t it? “Reynders said. “I think they are doing great for a first-year program. We think the world of Tim Jager. He is doing a wonderful job with those young men and I am very, very proud of their first year.”
The only person who doesn’t get excited when discussing the record of the first wrestling team at Morningside since 1979 is Jager. He just looks at it as simply meeting the goal he set at the beginning of the season. He looks forward to the next year and what his group of seasoned wrestlers might accomplish.
“We can build a lot more next year. A lot of the experience will give us more leadership, “Jager said.
When the mats were rolled up and the bleachers at the end of the Morningside/Dakota Wesleyan dual last week, the scoreboard showed Morningside winning the meet by a score of 29-16, brining their record to 9-7.
Although Jager seems to be strongly focused on the upcoming years and building a highly successful wrestling program at Morningside, for now, he’ll have to settle with his team being above average.
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