Building Great People With Great People
That’s the philosophy of the St. Mary’s Wrestling Program. The program is about developing and nurturing youths with compassionate, dedicated, and passionate entourage. “Results” are most important: the result of youths building character and learning respect, humility, determination, excellence, discipline, compassion, resilience, pride, and citizenship. St. Mary’s wrestling will always strive to have the best coaching staff and a supportive community to educate and build youths into the greatest person they can be. In doing so, we celebrate our victories on the mat and learn from our losses.
When trends and fads come and go every year, the idea of “wrestling” has been with mankind for over 15,000 years. There are cave drawings of the most primitive forms of wrestling and mythologies of wrestling. There are different forms of wrestling and its variations all around the world. Wrestling is the oldest sport known to mankind; it must be very valuable and important to us if it has been around that long! St. Mary’s wrestling has a rich tradition of success and excellence since the program’s inception in 1969. The program has changed the lives of the young Titans who go through it and given the wrestlers and the community invaluable experiences and memories that are cherished for the rest of their lives. We pride ourselves as a family, respect the legacy of those who came before us, and embrace new challenges on a mission to building the best program in the world. Here are 5 reasons why you should pursue the sport of wrestling at St. Mary’s:
Wrestling is for EVERYONE
Generally in the sport of wrestling, and of course at St. Mary’s, anyone who wants to join are welcome to join. There are no tryouts or requirements. It is because wrestling is an individual sport and a fair sport that allows everyone who is willing to put in the effort to be successful. It doesn’t matter whether you are tall or short, athletic or unathletic; there’s a place for everyone to benefit in wrestling. St. Mary’s has proven records of developing rookies into champions without depending on physical talent. We have done this through work ethic, technique, superior conditioning, and determination. Read more about why wrestling is for everyone HERE.
Wrestling builds GREAT people
Wrestling is a tough sport, but the rewards are invaluable. Wrestling is not just a sport, it is a way of life. It builds crucial life skills and character and positively changes how we live our lives and how we think about life. Through wrestling wrestlers can develop discipline, resilience, respect, humility, goal setting skills, and more through great friendship, rivalry, and family. At the end of the day, wrestling is a sport in which you learn how to get off your back; and life always puts us on our back. Wrestling sets a foundation of success in future jobs as can be read in “Why wrestlers make the best employees“. Read more about how wrestling builds greatness HERE. And, from a parents’ perspective, here’s why you should encourage your kid to wrestle. You can also watch how important wrestling is for wrestlers in THIS VIDEO.
Join the LEGACY
As much as the philosophy of our program is on development of life skills and building a family-like community, that is not to say we don’t care about winning! We love to celebrate our success and every wrestler is given a chance at leaving their legacy with the school. We celebrate the individual and team excellence. Take a look at how you can leave your name and team accomplishments as physical legacies of the program HERE and what the gorgeous end of season award banquet looks like HERE.
The BEST coaches and entourage
To support the wrestlers and to make sure every wrestler gets the best out of themselves, the program is proud to have outstanding coaches and entourage throughout the history of the program. Ed Paradis, the founding coach of the program, not only laid the foundation of the program built on discipline and excellence and won the program’s first Far East championship in 1982, but he changed the lives of so many wrestlers. His wrestlers always speaks of Coach Paradis with the highest respect and appreciation. Since then, we have had some big name coaches in Titans wrestling. Emilio Bruno was a national Judo coach for team USA. With an international coaching background, John Hohenthaner founded two programs for US base schools in Japan, and after coaching for the Titans, built a wrestling powerhouse at ASIJ to have their wrestling room named in his honor. Jon Rhodes set numerous records as a coach in the US before coming to Tokyo and is a USA National Hall of Fame coach. Having Bill Harlow – highly successful international level wrestler and USA Hall of Fame wrestler – as his uncle and his father who was a successful wrestling coach in Oklahoma, Ian Harlow brought a great wrestling tradition to Japan and rebuilt the wrestling program at Zama before coming to St. Mary’s only to set new school records for the Titans. Shu Yabui, an alumnus coach, is a United World Wrestling Coach Educator and instructs national team coaches of countries mainly in the Asia and Oceania regions. He led the program into their most dominating decade from 2010-2020. The program also has ties with national teams and Olympians who are involved as entourages of the program. Find out more about the current coaching staff HERE.
Titans Wrestling is a FAMILY
The wrestling program is not just for the wrestlers. Parents, graduates, former wrestling parents, and wrestling friends around the world continue to be involved with the program. The love, care, and passion of these “family” members are simply amazing. Former Titan wrestlers and parents pride themselves as Titans forever; they are people who always want to give back to the school and program. Our wrestling alumni show great support for the program whether it may be as volunteer coaches or donations or hosting pep parties. Our former parents continue to support the current team. It’s probably not a coincidence that the headmaster and some teachers at St. Mary’s are former wrestlers, and the chairman of the St. Mary’s Alumni Association and many board members are former wrestlers. Just as an example, watch the end credits of the 50th anniversary team highlight video to see the huge “family” members that are involved in a season and how over 130 wrestlers, parents, and former coaches celebrated the 50th anniversary of the program HERE and this video of the celebration.