UW-Stevens Point: Johnny Johnson embraces women’s wrestling, ready for the season
STEVENS POINT, W.I. – – Going into his 22nd year of coaching the Pointers men’s wrestling team, Johnny Johnson has taken on a new venture: coaching the Pointers women’s wrestling team.
“You know the exciting part is that it’s almost like a different sport . . . as coaches you always have that desire to be doing something new and for me that’s kind of the cool part is doing something different and new,” Coach Johnson said.
Coach Johnson has more than years of experience to offer the new women’s program. His aptitude for freestyle sets him apart—he was a member of three U.S. National Teams and an alternate to the 1988 U.S. Olympic Team. So, while he might be new to coaching women, he’s not new to freestyle. In fact, he said it’s his preference and where he had the most success as a competitor.
“I’ve been here long enough that a lot of people have no idea what my background is as a wrestler. And, in fact I coached Dennis [Hall] in four different Olympic trials, so people think I was a Greco wrestler. When I competed, it was freestyle, so that was really my kind of love when I was in high school and college. I was one of those kids that would say I wish we would switch to freestyle when I was in college, and then I wrestled beyond college internationally, so it’s fun to get back to that.”
Johnny Johnson
He said the interpretation of the rules might be a bit different, “but the part I love, teaching the technique and such, that hasn’t really changed.”
As for managing practice plans for both styles, Coach Johnson shared some wisdom: “I don’t structure my practices based on the style I structure my practices based on my team. We have a very wide range of wrestling knowledge in our room for the women; that range is so wide that we’re going to be doing a lot of very basic things that I wouldn’t do on the men’s side. But we’re also going to be breaking out in individual sessions because we have to be able to coach every kid to the level that they’re at.”
That supportive and growth-minded position exemplifies Johnson’s views on encouraging women of all experience levels to be involved in the sport. “There are girls that have come to me with their different judo/jiu jitsu backgrounds and said, ‘I want to be on the wrestling team but I’ve never wrestled before’ . . . we need those girls in the room because we want to grow the sport, but we have to also retain those girls by meeting them where they are—we need them to love the sport and help us grow it.”
So how does a NCAA Div. III program with a rich men’s wrestling history land on the decision to add a women’s program in a state that hasn’t sanctioned the sport yet? Persistence.
Johnson said that as soon as women’s wrestling became prevalent at the national level, he started paying attention. More recently, he began feeding Brad Duckworth, UWSP’s Director of Athletics, pieces of women’s wrestling news. Eventually the steady trickle of information prompted Duckworth’s request for more information and a plan. And thus, the Pointers announced last November that they would be adding a women’s wrestling program for the 2019-20 season.
As more coaches like Johnson embrace women’s wrestling, state sanctioning efforts should get fast-tracked, participation rates should surge, and opportunities for women at all levels will compound, everywhere.
“This is a clear example of a sport with athletic interest out there. We have one woman who was already in school here and competing at the national level and have signed 6 new incoming students. With a little laugh in his voice Johnson said, “I have people on campus that—again, being here on as long as I have—will ask me about the women’s program that have never asked me about the men’s program before.”
Knowing how much he’d have to handle leading two programs, Johnson secured a stellar group of coaches for the women. “I think there are always challenges to adding something new to your program. But we have great assistant coaches with Jake Wozniak and Jessika Rottier. They both spent a lot of time this summer working with the WWF [Wisconsin Wrestling Federation] junior women. It will be a work in progress, but I’m confident we will make it work for both teams.” On top of that, Johnson just shared the addition of another quality individual to the women’s coaching staff, Bryan Koontz. Koontz has been working with the WWF junior and cadet girls since 2017.
You read that right: NCAA college coaches are on the ground helping to support the infrastructure to build and retain girl wrestlers in the state of Wisconsin.
Johnson says he hasn’t been recruiting women long enough to differentiate between men’s and women’s personalities. However, “The difference for us right now is that when we’re recruiting men we have a program in place, we have a culture in place, we have history in place to talk about—this is how we do things, this is what our goal is—while on the women’s side a lot of time we make comparisons to the men’s side so it’s a little bit different from that standpoint.”
The Pointers will compete as part of the Women’s Collegiate Wrestling Association while efforts around the NCAA emerging sport status for women’s wrestling are actively progressing. “I’m very excited about the NCAA looking at women’s wrestling as an emerging sport. I look forward to the day we are part of the NCAA from the women’s side.”
