West Valley coach rebuilding wrestling program long term

Mike Bundy knows he has a tough job. And it only gets tougher trying to keep up with the neighbors.

“I sometimes wish I was in a league with some lazy coaches,” the West Valley wrestling coach said, laughing. “That way I might actually gain some ground on them.”

Bundy is in the midst of rebuilding the wrestling program at West Valley, a storied program that won a state tournament championship at the end of the 1971-72 season.

It’s a ground-up project.

Perennially successful wrestling programs aren’t made. They’re grown, and Bundy has begun planting the seeds of future championships.

“We’ve got our little kids program going, but we won’t start seeing the payoff of it for quite a few years yet,” Bundy said.

The good news is that there are plenty of models on which Bundy can base his rebuild.

“It’s hard to compete against the programs here because these coaches all have done a terrific job building them,” Bundy said. “It’s tough to compete against programs that have kids who are totally dedicated to wrestling the year around – from the start of the high school season all the way through the national championships in Fargo.”

Bundy has done a fine job pulling in athletes and persuading them to give the sport a try, but it is a tough sale.

The intensity of a wrestling workout can burn out an athlete who isn’t prepared for it, and Bundy admits it is tough to watch the numbers dwindle over those first few days and weeks of a new season.

“If you’re not ready for it, it can be brutal,” he said. “You have to be willing to totally expend everything you have every day in the pursuit of improving. That’s a tough sale for someone who has never had to do that before.

“It’s a great part of the sport, especially if you’ve grown up with it. But when you step into it, it’s overwhelming.”

John Wooden is famous for observing that sports do not build character, they reveal it.

Wrestling doesn’t just reveal character; it strips it of all pretense and artifice. What it leaves is a deeply grounded humility that serves all who survive it well for the rest of their lives.

“You have to be willing to pay the price in this sport,” Bundy said. “Not everyone is.”

No other sport asks its athletes to do what wrestling demands at the end of each season.

Only one wrestler in each weight division completes his or her season undefeated over two days, and to do that takes a rare dedication to self-improvement. One more wrestler finishes the season undefeated until the final match. Everyone else is asked, after a tough loss, to rush right into a consolation round match for the right to continue.

“It takes a special kind of kid to be able to fight through that kind of situation,” Bundy said. “And we have a couple kids who are willing to pay that price and battle back.”

That’s a good sign – a good foundation for a rebuilding program.

The best asset Bundy has in his corner will never come out for a match – but is the best signal of the program’s future success.

“My wife is the most important person in this whole process,” Bundy said. “If she didn’t understand and support what we’re trying to do, there’s no way it would work. I don’t get home until 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday. You can’t put in hours like that if you’re family isn’t there to support you.”