| Appalachian |
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| Written by Appalachian Sports Information - GoASU.com |
| Sunday, 19 November 2006 12:00 |
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ASU's own newspaper, The Appalachian, caught up with wrestling head
coach Paul Mance for the "Getting to Know Your Coach" feature. If you could change the ASU mascot, what would you change it to and why? “I wouldn’t change it. I graduated from Appalachian. I went to school here back in the ‘60s, and I love the Appalachian Mountaineers.” “I wouldn’t change anything about it; I love the Black and Gold, and love the Mountaineers. The only thing I might change is that I would change us back to an old gold because I like the old gold much better than I do the bright gold.” Do you have a pre-game ritual? “We kind of do the same type of thing every match, trying to get ourselves ready, coming in, warming up, doing a little practice at a specific time before the matches and getting the guys fired up just a little bit before we come out here. It is not really a ritual, but it is kind of the same thing everyday or every match.” If you were not coaching, what would you be doing? “If I weren’t coaching, I would probably be a fishing guide up on the St. Lawrence River. That is upstate New York. That is where I grew up.” “My father was a guide and boat builder, and my grandfather was a guide and a boat builder. I guided for ten years on that river. Probably that is what I would be doing, being a fishing guide and working a marina up there.” Were you a college athlete? What sports? “Yeah, I wrestled and played track and soccer here at Appalachian. I did three sports in college, and I loved it. “ “Yeah, it was busy, but back then everybody did a lot more stuff. Your sports seasons were three months long normally then.” “Now, your seasons are eight, nine, ten months long. It is very difficult for someone to try to do three sports now.” Back then, if you had an off-season and you were a good athlete you wanted to play another sport.” Why are you coaching this sport? “I love this sport. It is probably the one true sport where you get to go out on the mat and find out what you are made of. When you walk off the mat they either raise your hand or they raise somebody else’s hand. And no other sport, is that way.” “Where you actually, physically go out and combat against a guy. Boxing is that way and a few others is that way a little bit but it is completely a different situation. I love that. “I think it builds a lot of character in kids and make them really tough, it makes them very good people when they are done.” What made you come to ASU? Actually, I came to Appalachian because of John Welborn. The cafeteria over here is named Welborn Hall. His father ran the cafeteria here, and came from Upstate New York and was my football coach.” “I only wrestled my senior year of high school, but he coached me in football. I was the quarterback and middle linebacker and he convinced me to go out for wrestling instead of basketball my senior year. I did a really good job in wrestling. He convinced me to come here to go to school and that is the reason I chose Appalachian.” How time consuming is the job/what sacrifices are made? “It was a whole lot more time consuming when I was a younger kid and I was a younger coach, I was doing it pretty much all by myself.” “Now, because I have been at it for 35 years in college now, we have developed a camp and been able to do some things to bring in some assistant coaches and have a lot more support.” “It is not as time consuming for me, but it is very time consuming for the assistant coaches a lot more so than it is for myself. They are doing a lot of the dirty work that I used to have to do. I can assign things to other people to do a lot of the stuff, and they do a really good job.” What is one thing you would change about yourself or ASU? “It is hard to say, I am happy with Appalachian, I am happy with myself.” “I am not the kind of person that would look back and try to say that I would do things differently. I like the way things are.” “I would like to have a little bit more financially for our program earlier so that we could be a top 10 or top 20 team in the country.” “That is just me being selfish. Certainly all of us would have liked to have things of that nature. What was your welcome to coaching moment? “I really started coaching at a junior college in upstate New York. It was kind of a tough situation because I walked into a school and they wanted to start a wrestling program. I did not take the job until two weeks before the season started.” “They did not have any athletes. They did not have any wrestlers; nobody was recruited.” “We just took kids that had done a little bit of high school wrestling, and we took soccer players that had never wrestled before. We made a wrestling team that first year, and it was very devastating the first year. “ We went 0-8 with kids that really had not done much wrestling or had no wrestling experience. Two or three years later we were 17-2, so it changed really fast. What 1 CD can be found in your CD player/car? “It is definitely going to be country music. Garth Brooks or Toby Keith and all those guys are part of my CD collection.” How long do you see yourself at ASU? “This is my 31st year here at ASU, plus a year of assistant coaching.” “I see myself here at least two more years, then we will see where the program is at, where our coaching staff is at to see if one of those guys are ready to step up. We feel that we have got coaches in here that are going to be able to do that.” “We have got to get the program on top. We have got to get our athletes on top.” “If that happens then I will be real happy to step out of here and let someone else run this program.” Story Link: |
