Secret of Poway Wrestling? : It’s No Mystery--Just Hard Work, Commitment

Is there a strange place in the center of town where young boys are transformed into high school wrestlers? Where they are fed strange formulas and forced to practice long hours?

Each year, there is much speculation about why Poway High School has remained the county’s wrestling power for the past decade.

“People will say, ‘I hear you’re a factory out there. I hear you require all the kids in the school to take wrestling.’ All of which is totally false,” Titan Coach Wayne Branstetter said.

“(They say) ‘You guys must have a great feeder program.’ That’s not true at all. We get the normal ninth grade gangly kid walking around the campus, ‘Hey, would you like to come out for wrestling?’ Then we work at it.

“People want to know what we do. Kids ask our kids, ‘What do you do in practice? Do you you lift a lot of weights? Do you run a lot?’ There’s not a lot of big secrets.”

A dedicated coaching staff and hard work have kept Poway at the top of the Palomar League for 11 consecutive years. The Titans have a team state title, an individual state champion and seven CIF titles to their credit. Last season, Poway went undefeated in the league.

“I think myself and my assistants make wrestling seem important enough to the kid that he wants to excel in it,” Branstetter said. “It helps when you’ve had good teams in the past and seniors that have done well. They look up to them and want to continue that success.

“I tell the kids and make them understand that this is a very intense program--I wouldn’t know how to coach it any other way. If you’re going to come out for wrestling, you are really going to make a commitment--a very strong commitment where we expect a lot out of you, and if you’re not ready to make that commitment, then don’t bother coming out. We don’t run it like an intramural program or just something to do after school.”

Branstetter has coached wrestling for 16 years and is in his 11th year at Poway. He graduated from Chico State, where he wrestled at 142 pounds. A dislocated shoulder interrupted a successful senior season; Branstetter says the injury made him a better coach because he never reached his full potential and he wants to help others do so.

Team members see Branstetter as the catalyst behind Poway’s success.

“You have to have the athletes, but without a doubt it’s our coach that makes our program successful. He puts so much time into it,” said Dale Hanover, a 126-pound senior. “If you get a coach that puts this much time into it and knows what he knows and has been through what he’s been through, you’re going to be good. Most coaches will just run the practice. Our coach goes through everything with us, and he does it better than us.”

When Branstetter first took over the program, he only ran one practice for all the grades. But 6 or 7 years ago, he and assistant Al Torretto began running two practices because of increased interest. There are now nearly 80 wrestlers in the program; Torretto oversees the freshmen and sophomores, Branstetter the varsity and junior varsity teams.

“Part of our success comes from the system we have set up,” Branstetter says of handling the younger wrestlers in a separate practice.

Poway has one workout per day, average for high school teams. The wrestlers lift weights and work on their conditioning during daily physical education classes.

“I think our kids are very technically sound in their wrestling skills,” Branstetter said. “What we’re teaching them and what they’re able to accomplish with them is a major reason why we are successful. They’re in awfully good shape, too.”

There is some wrestling in the off-season, but it is not as intense as many people believe. The wrestlers who choose to do so may wrestle one night a week and compete in a few weekend tournaments.

“We’re very lax in the offseason. If a kid wants to do it, it’s there for him,” Branstetter said. “I understand that a lot is going on in their lives, learning to drive, he has a girlfriend, he has a lot to experience. I’m very aware of that, so I try to get a kid to balance his time to do other things. To be a good student and a good person. Being a good wrestler is important, but being a good person is more important. I push that.”

Many boys first begin wrestling as freshmen. Branstetter says that by the time a boy is a sophomore, he should be wrestling on the junior varsity and that he should be ready for the varsity level by the time he’s a junior. Because Poway has such a competitive program, there are no guaranteed spots. Wrestle-offs are held to set the line-up, and this year, three seniors did not make the team because of younger competition.

Very few freshmen have been in the varsity lineup over the years, but freshman Gene Reding began wrestling freestyle 5 years ago and is having no problem this season as the team’s 105-pounder.

“I feel less pressure (being a freshman on varsity) because I can say I’ve got three more years,” Reding said. “The coaches are really helpful, but they still say school is the most important thing.”

Hanover can see both advantages and disadvantages in being a Poway wrestler.

“Everyone wants to see you fall, but also the advantage is that sometimes you can win matches just because you’re Poway,” he said. “But when it comes down to it in the high-caliber competition, it’s who has worked the hardest.

“A lot of times we draw more fans at other schools than we do at our school because people want to see teams beat Poway.”