Following the 2022-23 wrestling season, Harlan head coach John Murtaugh stepped away from the program after his retirement as a teacher for 39 years and as a head coach for 37 years. Stepping up into his position would be now former volunteer coach Adam Bendorf. Bendorf is a two-time state champion wrestler for Lewis Central and wrestled collegiately at Brigham Young University. He has spent the last three years as a volunteer coach for the Cyclone program before taking on the head coaching role. While the change is a new feeling for him, he says it’s mostly the feeling of, quote, “when you don’t know what to worry about you worry about everything.” However, that’s not stopping him from embracing the role that’s a step up from working with kids he already knows. He says that relationship has helped his transition be a little easier.
The head coach may be a new role for him but Coach Bendorf is embracing it with open arms. He says sometimes it’s weird to experience a practice from the head coach position rather than a volunteer coach but from his perspective he believes that these early practices have been going very well. Bendorf says he also is taking a more gradual approach to running the early season practices in order to prevent injury and to better accommodate new wrestlers. While the approach may seem different to many, his goal for the kids is also different than many would expect, but in a good way.
Harlan wrestling returns three state qualifiers from the 2022-23 season in juniors Jesse Jens, Spencer Fink, and Brody McKinely. The three wrestlers would fall short of a podium finish at Wells Fargo as Fink and McKinely were knocked out in the second round of consolations and Jens lost in the fifth round of consolations. Coach Bendorf not only believes these three will be back and on the podium to end the year, but there will be plenty of teammates to join them. As a proud father does, Bendorf also believes his son, freshman Brody Bendorf will be one of those teammates. His excitement doesn’t stop with the high school wrestling, as he loves the current culture in Harlan and even gives a shout-out to the football program.
Harlan Wrestling will participate in their first tournament and competition of the year when they host their home tournament on December 2nd starting at 10 am.
