(Oakland) Mitch Anderson says he took no coaching classes in college and had no intentions of ever taking over a wrestling program. But our guest this week on the Why I Coach series did spend a year as volunteer assistant at Simpson which got the juices flowing.
Anderson presided over Riverside’s 1996 state title and is an Iowa High School Wrestling Hall of Famer. “I kind of got the bug post college. I came back to farm and there was an opening in the wrestling room at the time, so I became the assistant at Oakland. We eventually reached out to Carson-Macedonia to coach John Steffens. He took us in and we became CMO for five years and I was an assistant under Steffens. We became Riverside as merged schools in 1993-94 and that was the last year for Coach Steffens as coach.”
The door swung open for Anderson at the perfect time and the real glory years of Riverside wrestling took place in the mid-90’s. “It was really kind of a perfect storm. It was really all set up for me. Coach Steffens allowing us to merge the programs before the schools did gave the kids an opportunity to start working together prior to becoming Riverside. The kids really wanted to make this happen. The parents kind of fought that merger and the kids kind of wanted to prove a point and they worked really hard to make the sports thing work and we really shined at wrestling.”
And there was no shortage of talent from the youth programs on up. Jimmy Rodgers, Kyler Canoyer, Jake Havick, and Steve Swope were among the deep, deep list of very accomplished grapplers at the time.
One of the things he takes great pride in is how wrestling benefited his athletes when they reached the real world. “They’ll come back and say wrestling was a big influence and taught them some disciplines that helped them out. I’ve always taken great pride in that. I’ve had a lot of military kids come back and say basic training was easy compared to wrestling practice. I always kind of took that as a badge of honor.”
He says the individual nature of wrestling is what makes it so unique compared to other sports. “You can’t blame your teammates, you can’t blame your coach, it was you. You are the one out there so you have to look in the mirror and make your changes with yourself. I think that’s a big part of it is not being able to pass the blame or point fingers. It’s all on you.”
Anderson, who competes annually in the world’s longest nonstop paddle board race, says he’s never been one to turn down a challenge. “I love challenges I guess and always have. I tend to turn everything into a contest. It’s just kind of my nature.” The MR340 is a staple of Anderson’s summer and he broke the record for his age group.
Anderson says he misses the daily grind in the practice room, but his body was telling him it was time and the fire was going out. According to the Omaha World Herald, Anderson led the program for 17 years with 241 dual victories and six conference titles. He coached 28 state medalists including eight champions.
Previous Coaches
John Kesselring, Adair-Casey alum
Eric Maassen, (AHST grad) Sheldon
Jerome Hoegh, Atlantic grad (West Sioux)
Gaylord Schelling, Atlantic and Tri-Center
Chad Klein, Audubon Native (Kuemper Catholic and Boone)
Jan Jensen, Elk Horn-Kimballton alum
Seth Poldberg, EH-K grad and Guthrie Center coach
Trevor Gipple, (Griswold grad) SW Valley
Eric Stein (Harlan grad) Iowa Central
Darrell Burmeister, Nodaway Valley
Lanny Kliefoth, Nodaway Valley
