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Seizing Expectations: Grieder and LH Wrestling Team Ready to Defend Their 19th District Championship

The Lake Highlands wrestling squad is not the most important sports team at the school; that title belongs to the football team, as it does in just about every other high school in Texas. But the wrestling team doesn’t need the spotlight. The four-time defending district champions will just keep on winning, as they have for over two straight decades.

Pete Grieder is the man who built the Lake Highlands wrestling team into a state powerhouse. Under his leadership, Lake Highlands has won 19 district championships in the last 21 years. And the two years they didn’t win, they took second place. Grieder acknowledges that after two decades of success, he and his team expect to win and that confidence helps his team beat the odds.

“A lot of times, the expectations of winning takes care of a lot of other shortcomings,” said Grieder. “Some of my kids may not be any better than some of the other kids. But, just because they come from Lake Highlands, they’re going to beat this other guy, even if they have the same abilities.

When we go into district, the expectations are we will win district. Now, we know that there may be a team out there that might beat us or maybe come close, but we know that we have to win district. We’re expected to win district and we want to win district.”

Aside from being the coach of the wrestling team, Grieder is also a math teacher at Lake Highlands. His ability to recognize patterns and focus on the big picture, just as he does in class, helped him achieve success early in his coaching career. The fact that his only experience in wrestling was the four years he spent on the wrestling team in high school makes his winning record even more impressive. His ability to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of his own players and focus on what they each need to do in order to improve individually is one of his best assets.

“Every coach is blessed with great athletes; the great athletes are not the ones that need great coaching. It’s the average athletes and the ones that are below average that you got to motivate to get to the point where they’re good or become great athletes. That’s when the coach has to do his work.”

According to Grieder, the top wrestlers possess six essential attributes that separate them from the rest. He calls these wrestlers, “the full package.” Of those six qualities, only one is truly trainable: technique. To Grieder, technique is one of the two most important characteristics a wrestler can have. Four of them are physical: quickness, strength, balance and endurance. And finally, the last key to being a great wrestler is heart.

“How bad do they want it? How far can they push themselves?” said Grieder succinctly.

Two of the best, “full package” wrestlers that have ever passed through Lake Highlands came in the last five years. Austin Cordova, who graduated in 2008, had two seasons when he suffered only a single loss. And the other was Isaac Grieder, the second of Grieder’s three sons. Isaac, who graduated in 2010, is the only wrestler to have gone undefeated in a season while Grieder has been the head coach. Both of them were state champions while at school.

Even though Isaac has graduated, Grieder still brings up his name on occasion. But, he doesn’t do it to brag. Instead, it’s a bar that he encourages and challenges his current wrestlers to rise to and above by practicing and training hard. Grieder’s youngest son, T.J., is a member of the team and is striving, just like his teammates, to replace his brother’s name in the records. And with the goals that Grieder and his team have set for themselves, they’ll all need to be at their best.

Grieder said, “Our goals are to win district, to be No. 1 or No. 2 at regionals and to place in the top-5 at state.”

Every coach on every team in every school around the country has similar goals. But for Grieder and his wrestlers, those aren’t just goals. After 20 years of success, those are now expectations.

All photos courtesy of the Lake Highlands Wrestling Team.

Thursday, 15 September 2011