Kindergarten, first, second, fourth, fifth, seventh, ninth, and tenth grade and four of the first five years after I graduated.  I can still rattle that stat off pretty quick. That is the list of the grades I was in when my hometown of Lisbon, Iowa won a 1A  State wrestling title.  Lisbon and wrestling were one in the same. When you said you were from Lisbon, people knew about wrestling and in the state of Iowa, that is saying a lot. Lisbon is a wrestling school, Lisbon is a wrestling town and Iowa is a wrestling state.  Lisbon has won fourteen state titles over the years, second only to Waterloo West with seventeen. The last time Lisbon won a state title was in 1993.  Over the course of the next three days, Hall of Fame coach Brad Smith will lead the Lisbon Lions on the trail to bring that identity of being the best small town wrestling town in the state of Iowa back home to Lisbon.

Before we look to the next three days, let’s take a step back.  Brad Smith showed up in Lisbon in the fall of 1978 to replace the irreplaceable, Al “Coach” Baxter who had led Lisbon to five state titles in the previous six years and put Lisbon on the map as a wrestling powerhouse.  I learned the basics in wrestling from Coach Baxter in kindergarten PE class as that is how he built Lisbon wrestling and he left huge shoes to fill for our school and town.  Smith had won an NCAA national title in 1976 for the Iowa Hawkeyes and was apart of building up the foundation and beginning of the legend that is Iowa Wrestling.  For more on the story of how Coach Smith came to be the Lisbon wrestling coach, check out my blog from last April:  https://iowawrestlingblog.com/2016/05/coach-smith-is-making-and-chasing-history/

After winning an amazing seven state championships in eleven years, Brad Smith left Lisbon to coach at Iowa City High after the 1991 season.  After winning three state titles in twenty-one years, Coach Smith came home to coach Lisbon wrestling in the fall of 2012. I for one did not question if Coach Smith could bring back the glory days of winning state titles to Lisbon, it was a question of when.  Let’s hope that question is answered on Saturday night.

Coach Smith: Basically when I came in, there were some good kids already there and coming up and I saw that.  One of my main priorities when I came in was to get somebody in the junior high that is affiliated with the program and that was Jeff Clark.  He has done a really good job with our junior high.  Our feeder program is really tough.  We have a really good club, the Mat Pack that is run by our former wrestlers.  Matt Kohl, Jeff Clark, and Brian Hall are involved with that along with Joe Kilburg.   Just amazing people that are supporting our program and helping us out.

Out Mat Pack club helps our kids financially to go to wrestling camps.  It’s a complete deal.  When I was first coaching here, I was the only coach and did everything. I did the elementary program, the junior high and the high school program as the only coach and was alone. Now I have so many other people that I can delegate authority to and it makes my job that much easier because there are so many more people involved to help us get to the next level.  That’s one reason why I came back because we had that all set up,  I have a great staff. It’s probably better than any other wrestling program in the state in 1A.  I surrounded myself with great people and these guys putting the time and effort in makes it so much easier for me.

Lisbon came close by placing second last year by only 8.5 points.  After losing an incredible amount of points with the graduation of four-time state champ Carter Happel, two time state champ Nick Williams, and placewinner Hunter Robinson, along with the transfer of third place finisher Wally Zernich, Lisbon has the potential to be even better this season.  For a small school, it is unheard off to replace that many points and still be in the running the following year especially when there has only been one freshman in the lineup.

Going by The Predicament ratings, Lisbon is led by freshman Cael Happel who is ranked number one at 113 and who tech falled the second and fifth ranked wrestlers in the state at Districts.  Sophomore Cobe Siebrecht is ranked second at 106 and junior Cooper Siebrecht is third at 132. Senior Chase McLaughlin, who signed a National Letter of Intent to wrestle at Grand View, is ranked fifth at 138.  Junior Bryce Werderman is ranked sixth at 160 and junior Kayden Kilberg is ranked seventh at 152. Lisbon also qualified sophomore Ryan Mohrfeld at 120, junior Jake Jennett at 195, and junior Logan O’Connor at 220.  That is a number one ranked team with only one senior.  I have never heard of that.

Coach Smith: Our theme for this year is “Close the deal.”  Last year we lost on criteria in the duals which was disappointing and we were within points of winning the traditional state title.  So we just need to get over the hump a little bit and I thought that was a good theme and the kids have thought about that all season long. The kids know what we need to do.

The kids put a lot of time in the off-season.  That’s something that we preach a little bit as coaches and I have always done that.  We had a lot of kids wrestling freestyle, go to camps,  and wrestling in clubs like Eastern Iowa Wrestling.  To get to where you want to get better, you have to put time into the off-season and our kids did that.  We have also had kids step up and improve from last year.  We have several guys in our lineup that qualified that can be place winners and if we do that we will have a shot at getting the title.

Maybe the best coaching Smith has done is his coaching staff.  Five assistant coaches on the Lisbon coaching staff all wrestled for and won a state title for Smith at Lisbon.  Those five coaches won ten state titles:  Shane Light (4X), Dean Happel (3X), and Greg Butteris, Brian Hall, and Jeff Clark all won one state title.  That is an amazing stat in itself.  To have that many former wrestlers that grew up under Coach Smith now back home to bring the glory days back to Lisbon Wrestling is a great example of what Lisbon Wrestling and Lisbon, Iowa truly is.

Coach Smith: I have a great staff.  It’s probably better than any other wrestling program in the state in 1A.  You surround yourself with good people and all of these coaches are great guys and they all have a role in the room.  Everybody in there all have a roll and the kids listen to them.  I do most of the coaching during the technique, but I may say hey Dean, you’re going to show this and that.  I can step back and feel very confident that the kids are going to pick up from it.

When asked what he would say to the Lisbon wrestlers about what it was going to take to win the team title, Coach Smith commented:

Our schedule, we probably have more matches than any other 1A team in the state.  Our schedule is probably the toughest schedule of any 1A team in the state. What I tell our kids is to look at the competition that we have competed against in dual meets and tournaments this year. There is nobody on the team that is undefeated but I feel we have the potential to have two or three state champs because we have wrestled the best.  I’m not saying the other 1A teams do not face tough competition either.  But we wrestle the toughest schedule and it gives our kids coming into the tournament season the confidence that they can beat someone that is 42-1 in the state tournament where we have more losses.  They are confident because the competition level that we have wrestled and they know that they can pick that pace up and beat those individuals.

Coach Smith is one state title shy of tying Bob Siddens of Waterloo West for the most state titles won (11) by a coach in the long and illustrious history of Iowa high school Wrestling.  Iowa has a history for high school wrestling that is matched or surpassed by no other state.  

That is definitely something that I think about.  As a coach, I have goals too.  They are selfish goals but you want your kids to do what they can do and if it comes to they get another state title for Lisbon and I’m the coach, that’s awesome.  Sure I have goals, dual meet goals, traditional goals.  If you do not have goals as a coach, then why do you push your wrestlers to have goals?  So that’s definitely on my mind and it would be nice and if it does not happen this year maybe it will happen next year.

I still remember when the Lisbon crowd was a dominate force in section 25 and 27 in Vets.  The Wells Fargo Arena has replaced Vets, but the Lisbon fan following is just as well known as the results on the wrestling mat over the years.  There is something special about having a wrestler on the mat with the name on his singlet that you also see on the water tower in town.  There is a tradition, connection, unity, identity, and community pride that no other sport can approach.  I especially like seeing the Lisbon wrestlers from the past that built the tradition still following the program.  Seeing the transition over the years of a Lisbon wrestler becoming a Lisbon wrestling fan in the bleachers or a coach on the team is what makes Lisbon wrestling.  Over the years, many Lisbon family vacations for the entire year were to State, my family included.   I always thought that the Lisbon wrestling fan following was a great piece of Americana.  The way that so many things have changed over the last forty plus years in our world, Lisbon wrestling fans following their team has continued as the tradition is passed on from generation to generation.

Coach Smith:  I coached at City High for twenty-one years and we had a following, but there were so many other distractions for the student body and there was not a very good turnouts for big meets.  Lisbon, we always have a great crowd and the crowd is excited.  The thing about Lisbon people from other parts of the state, they really understand wrestling and they know what’s on the line.  They give us the support.  Our kids feel really comfortable when we go anywhere no matter where we are because we always have the best following.  And that makes the wrestlers basically excited about wrestling and excited about wrestling for the people there to watch them.  It makes a huge difference to have a great following.

Lisbon stormed to a Dual Meet State title yesterday with an impressive run by defeating Wapsie Valley 50-24 and the then third ranked Missouri Valley 42-27 before beating second ranked Don Bosco 45-26 in the finals.  The dual meet title is great, but the prize is always the traditional state title.

Lisbon has the team, momentum, tradition, coaching staff, and the fan support in place to win it all.  A state title would put Coach Smith in a tie as the most successful wrestling coach in the history of Iowa high school wrestling.  That would also put Lisbon within two titles as the most successful wrestling school in the history of Iowa high school wrestling.  It would be great for a new generation to get the same reaction from people that I did when they say they are from Lisbon and the sport of wrestling is the first thing that comes to mind as our identity. Best of all, a state title would bring the title of being known as the best small town wrestling town in the state of Iowa back home to Lisbon. Where it belongs.