Craig Mattick:
Welcome to another edition of In Play. I am Craig Mattick. Today's guest was the first class A wrestler in South Dakota, to win four straight wrestling titles. Four other wrestlers have achieved that feat since our guest did it in the early 70s, a career mark of '93 and one in high school. Our guest was the first wrestler at SDSU to win 40 matches in the season. A national wrestling champ in 1976, and then went on to a long wrestling coaching career in the state. His high school coach called our guest the best he ever had. He's the former Watertown Arrow and SDSU Jackrabbit, Rick Jensen. Rick, welcome to In Play.
Rick Jensen:
Yeah, well, thank you.
Craig Mattick:
Watertown has had a history of great wrestlers, so for your Hall of Fame, coach Marv Sherrill to call you his best ever, that's got to be a great compliment to you.
Rick Jensen:
Well, yeah, it is. He's pretty impactful individual. Yeah, pretty influential. It was a big part of my life. Got me off on the right track.
Craig Mattick:
What age was it that you first ran into Coach Sherrill on the wrestling mat?
Rick Jensen:
Well, I was a 7th grader in Watertown, South Dakota and in the junior high system. And I happened to have his wife as an English teacher that year. I think that was their first year in town. He was hired that year and his wife was very influential also. You knew one thing, you went to her class, she was going to keep you busy. But I had a gentleman named Vic Godfrey, who was our junior high wrestling coach. And he just kind of seeked out any very athletic kids that were in his physical education program. And he kind of pegged us, a few of us to go ahead and get involved in wrestling. And by the time Christmas rolled around, I found myself in front of Marv Sherrill's format up at the high school. So he pretty much was my major influence. Vic Godfrey got me started and he turned me over to Marv Sherrill very quickly, and then, the rest is kind of history.
Craig Mattick:
What kind of a wrestling family was the Jensen family? You have a brother, right? Is Larry your brother?
Rick Jensen:
Yeah, I'm the youngest of six children and we had three boys, three girls, and back in those days the girls weren't involved in sports, they just didn't have it around. They were all older and my two brothers were basketball players and once I got involved in wrestling, it didn't take long to figure out that my basketball career was probably over, which had a little bit to do with my physical nature, the fact that I was very, very short like my mother.
Craig Mattick:
Well, you started out yeah, at 98 pounds in high school.
Rick Jensen:
Back in those days, I suppose I was about a 75 pounder in 7th grade and then bloomed right up to 85 the next year and then eventually, grew into that 95 pound range, my freshman year and probably a little bit of a surprise. I mean I was successful but did not start wrestling until 7th grade, but Marv Sherill had a way of grinding it into you. If you were going to be in his room, you were definitely going to have to work hard, and learn very quickly then. The rewards came pretty quick if you followed his instructions and listened to them. So success came that freshman year and being in the right place at the right time, probably has a lot to do with it, more than you realize the right coach, the right incentives. The right hustle and things just kind of fell into place.
Craig Mattick:
The early 1970s. How many wrestling camps were out there for you to go to?
Rick Jensen:
Well, the only camp I really ever took in was whatever Marv said I could go to or whatever Marv dragged me to.
Craig Mattick:
Sure.
Rick Jensen:
Yeah. We weren't real modern back then. They had the old wrestling program over at Dakota State and Madison and SDSU and all our universities in the state of South Dakota had wrestling and Marv would always convince kids that they need to go and Marv made it very clear that "Jensen, you're riding with me." So I spent a lot of time in a lot of Volkswagens putting in time and yeah, because what Marv always drove with his Volkswagen. So that was the only way I got to things. Marv made sure that I not only followed his instructions and listened to him very carefully, but he was going to make sure I attended anything that he felt was important. And that's just kind of the way he ran his wrestling room. I think we won state that my 9th grade year. We had a bunch of seniors in the team, and-
Craig Mattick:
You beat Yankton and Rapid City Central, and Huron that year.
Rick Jensen:
Yeah, we put five guys in the finals and I think we only ... I don't even know what we placed in the ESD that year. I think we only place about two kids in the ESD conference early in the year, and I guess I just continued to surprise everybody because freshmen just didn't spend a lot of time in lineups back in those days, and Marv found one and got me to produce, and so I'm sure that was a little bit of a surprise. I think we had four seniors in the finals, I believe, and then myself, a freshman.
Craig Mattick:
Two champions and three finishing second. That scores you a lot of points in the finals.
Rick Jensen:
Yeah, it did back in those days. Yeah. There was no question about that. It was quite an experience and probably pretty exciting for here in South Dakota. You don't have a lot of state tournaments there anymore.
Craig Mattick:
That's right. It was in Huron and you're wrestling at '98 and you beat Tracy Upton of Aberdeen Central. Do you remember that?
Rick Jensen:
Yeah, Tracy is a good bud. He had me down, I think I wrestled him three times that year, I think. But I ran into him in the semi-finals of the regional tournament and Marv was a pretty aggressive sideline coach. He'd get after you a little bit if you weren't putting out. He felt you were slacking a little bit or you didn't want to be stalling, if you're wrestling for Marv Sherrill's, Watertown Arrows. So he'd get after you a little bit. So I think I was down coming out of the first period, and going into that second period, I think eventually, I was down six-zero to Tracy. And Marv, just kind of ... first time I've ever seen him do it, but he just kind of put his hands up in the air like, well, that's that. You better get busy.
So I got busy and I think it was about nine, six when we got done. I was glad to get off the mat and try to figure out what the heck happened out there. So Tracy was pretty savvy and then, I ran into him in the finals in the state tournament that year. So it seems like every year, until I was a senior, and I always ran into a senior, but there weren't a lot of us underclassmen around. It was kind of a big boy sport and an experience sport.
Craig Mattick:
So 1972, you're a sophomore. You move up a weight, you're at 105 and the wrestling tournament was in Watertown that year. How about that? You get to wrestle in the hometown and you win your second title in front of the hometown. You beat Robin Miller of Sioux Falls, Washington.
Rick Jensen:
Yeah, I ran into him in a dual meet or a dual ... at Washington, and I didn't know that much about him, but I knew he came down from 112 and I knew he was big and I knew he was tall. And didn't take long to figure out this kid was hard to handle. So I just stayed after him and boy, you had to work your tail off just to score what little points you could get on there. It's just every wrestler has their problems with certain sizes and shapes of individuals. I'll tell you what, his height created all kinds of problems for me and just made sure I had to stay very efficient, just to get the job done, he was a handful.
Craig Mattick:
Washington ran away with the title that year.
Rick Jensen:
Yeah, they did. They ran away with it.
Craig Mattick:
Watertown and Rapid City Central were second, but you guys were like 24 points away for Washington.
Rick Jensen:
Yeah, Washington was pretty tough that year. They had a lot of good kids, had some really exciting kids in the finals and in that tournament, and their just numbers is just ... they were on and they were tough to handle. I don't even remember if we beat them in that duel that year. I know it was a good duel and I know I was once again glad ... every time you had an experienced kid back in those days, their physical nature sometimes would create a lot of problems for you. So not one of those state tournaments that I spent a lot of time thinking about. I was just mostly thinking. I was glad to get by those guys. Their size and shape and experience caused a lot of problems for me. So at that point and stage of the game, I'm sure Marv had it figured out that I needed to progress some more and create more offense and begin to pick up and advance my style a little bit.
Craig Mattick:
So yeah, at this point, you've got two state tournaments under your belt, two state titles, getting ready for your junior year at Watertown. Did you start feeling any pressure of wrestling going into your junior year knowing the success that you'd already had?
Rick Jensen:
No, I don't think so. Marv, he didn't really give you time to think about pressure. It was pressure enough just to be in his wrestling room. His expectations were high anytime ... I'm sure anytime he sensed you're thinking about the wrong things or your character or behavior were getting off track a little bit. He was never afraid of jumping. He was going to make sure that he got your back on track quite rapidly. So it was just getting to the point where there's no question that he's trying to advance your technique, he's trying to advance the wrestling room, he's trying to make you guys a little bit more progressive in your styles and a little bit more diverse and a little bit more threatening offensively and defensively, a little bit tougher.
And so yeah, it's just one of those things where you go into the season and you either don't notice certain kids coming up and you kind of forget that you're being chased, but you just don't look back much. And so once in a while, there's always going to be some young kid or there's somebody that evolves scale-wise that catches you off-guard. And going into my junior year, that season, I think I'd beaten a state champion up at 126 because I ended up wrestling 119 most of the year, but I wrestled 19 all season, but he would shift me up and he would try different things to challenge me. So in one of the first tournaments we went to, everything went good, but later in that season before Christmas, I ran into an individual named Mike Stroope.
And realized real fast that there's still some kids that are coming into their own and I got knocked off for the first time in that season. It was a little bit of a shell-shocker to my teammates and my coach, but-
Craig Mattick:
Your only loss so far your high school career.
Rick Jensen:
Yeah, and it was to a pretty darn good kick, pretty good kid. He was very quick, pretty advanced as a wrestler, certainly not intimidated by me and Pierre ended up being a pretty good nemesis for us, because I ran into him, wrestled with him about four times, through ... those first two years and then ran into an individual named Kirk Simmons who was a teammate of his that turned out to be a national champion for South Coast State and a teammate of mine at South Coast State. So yeah, good competition. Production wise, both in those next two years, Pierre and Watertown had some fantastic duels, some fantastic competition with each other and those guys helped me along too.
Because it didn't take long for me to figure out that instead of just talking about advancing your technique, it's time to get it done because these guys are going to be all over you, if you don't-
Craig Mattick:
Your junior year state tournaments in Rapid City, you're up to 119. You win your third straight title. Watertown squeaks by for the team title. You beat Vermilion by two points, beat Pier by two and a half points, and you beat Tom Swanson of Rapid City Central for the title.
Rick Jensen:
Yeah, yeah. We placed ... we had three champions and I think we had one individual get third and we only needed four kids to win it. That was probably one of the last years ever that you win a state title, a team title with the bare minimum, and you got 12 guys, 12 different weight classes and the only place four and you win a state title. That's pretty rare. You got to feel pretty fortunate to get that done.
Craig Mattick:
Steve Cordell got a title, one of two titles that Steve got with his career at Watertown.
Rick Jensen:
Yeah, he was a pretty dominant wrestler, pretty physical and yeah, there was a lot of moments and there was a big to-do with I think our 138 pounder, we squeaked one out in the wrestle backs or in the corridors or something. Gary Olson, one of my teammates, he ended up bumping off. A really good kid from Spearfish and had that not happen and had that not been a really close match, obviously, we wouldn't have won it. So yeah, that was probably my first dominant match in the finals with an individual and I'd already beaten one individual from Rab City Central earlier in the year when I got bumped up to 126 during a duel. So I kind of nailed a couple of their kids.
So again, doing it in Rapid City, I think things couldn't have gone any better for us. Obviously winning a state title with the bare minimum was quite remarkable at that time.
Craig Mattick:
So here we are your senior year, 1974. Did you prepare for that season any different from the previous seasons?
Rick Jensen:
Well, we went down to ... South Dakota, took a team for the first time. South Dakota decided to start doing something for our coach's association, put together an outfit that went down and wrestled down in Mexico for a couple of weeks, two, three weeks down in Mexico. So we went down there and some of our coaches ... Gosh, we must have had about six coaches down there and probably about 15, 20 kids and went down there, and it was a good experience, culturally and otherwise from a reference standpoint. You were going to run into approximately anything down there, as far as skill and you really didn't know, so you won some, you lost some. Everything was freestyle and it was a good experience.
Because you got to be around some pretty advanced wrestlers and some coaches that had some different approaches and then, just walked out of college or were still competing for some club wrestling, across the country. And so, I got exposed quite a bit to an individual named Stan Opp from Aberdeen and wrestled for South Dakota State and so opportunity to pick up more technique, work on it real hard during that timeframe and add it into your repertoire and become a little bit more deadly with it.
Craig Mattick:
What move in wrestling was always in your back pocket ready to use at any time?
Rick Jensen:
Well, other than the fact that I was probably going to outwork just every kid that I ever wrestled, and you were going to get pushed to the max, no one was going to outwork you. I would say mostly for the most part I was pretty creative, always had a fireman's carry in my back pocket, learned it from the best named Stan Opp. He just grounded into me and learned very fast that your offense was going to have to be on both sides left and right, and you're going to have to be more versatile and then, defensively, if you were going to attack get after me, there's no question that you were going to be punished. And I believed in a lot of finesse. It's probably the one thing about wrestling that most wrestlers enjoy.
And that is, if you finesse somebody, it just means you're out-thinking them and out-techniquing them and you have a lot of fun with that. And so, it was going to be very difficult for somebody that I don't think me. There was obviously, more things I was eventually going to learn at the college level, but in the high school level I was certainly having a lot of fun, out-finessing and out-thinking everybody, and knowing that you got everybody on their heels.
Craig Mattick:
Your senior year, you moved up two weight classes from your junior year. Did you think early on that you had just moved to 119 and not all the way up to 126 or-
Rick Jensen:
No, I think I was pretty realistic about things. I knew, even though I was one of the smaller siblings in the household, I knew my brothers were bigger, they were taller, they were thicker. And so, I knew I'd keep growing some, just didn't know how much, but-
Craig Mattick:
So you go to 132?
Rick Jensen:
Yeah, 132. I had the option to wrestle, 26 that year, but we had another senior in the lineup that wasn't going to fit at 32. And so Marv just asked me to go 32 and let him wrestle 26 and that was fine. I think a couple kids across the state were looking for me to go down to 26 Russell that weight class, but-
Craig Mattick:
They were very happy you didn't go down to 126.
Rick Jensen:
Well, yeah, it also caused a little bit of turmoil for me. I had to work at it a little bit that year and obviously, that was the year that I ran into Kirk Simet, wrestled him four times that year.
Craig Mattick:
And he's the defending champion from 112 from the previous year.
Rick Jensen:
So Kirk Simet and Mike Stroope were teammates and that was one thing I learned very quickly is they were very explosive wrestlers and had a lot of natural fast twitch muscles. I had to be on my toes when I wrestled those guys, felt really good about wrestling Kirk in the duel. That was the third time I'd wrestle them that year and handled them quite easily in that match because he opened up quite a bit. And that kind of backfired on him, and so I didn't know what I was going to get when I hit him in the finals that year, I just knew I was going to get a pretty good wrestler. But I was hoping it was going to be the same Kirk Simet I ran into that dueled me, but I did kind of assume that he would make some adjustments and not open up quite so much.
It was a tight battle to the end and he made me work for it and I had to be really, really sure that as explosive as he was, that I stayed busy right up until the very last second because I knew he was pretty dangerous.
Craig Mattick:
And how great did that state tournament was in Watertown, your hometown, that was pretty awesome. Two times you had the state tournament in Watertown.
Rick Jensen:
Yep, two times and it was always fun to wrestle in Watertown. It was always a great experience. I always felt that arena was ... I hated it when they moved the state tournaments out of there. My own kids wrestled at state tournaments there and so, it was always fun, because the crowd was close to you and they always had great crowds and great participation and educated crowds. Everybody kind of knew what was going on and so yeah, to finish up my career there, it was in high school, it was a lot of fun.
Craig Mattick:
What was going through your mind after you won your fourth straight title, something that had never been done in class A, your high school career is over? What was going through your mind?
Rick Jensen:
I think the only thing that was crossing my mind is where am I going to go wrestle at in college. South Dakota State was recruiting me pretty hard and I had opportunity to go down to Oklahoma State and some of them places later that spring. Usually, you didn't sign a letter of intent back in those days until you get a little bit closer to the summer or deep into the spring. I knew I had a national USA wrestling tournament to go to down in Colorado and went down there, did pretty well, took third down there, knocked off an individual that was going to go to Iowa State and had already signed down there. So ran into a couple of tight matches that I lost to a couple of Colorado kids I believe. And then, knocked off Iowa State's number one kid.
And then, the recruiting began at that point. So some individuals wanted me to come down to Oklahoma State, wanted me to visit and all that stuff. I guess that kind of hurried the process at South Dakota State to keep me signed. Marv Sherrill was a graduate from South Dakota State. At the time, I didn't see any reason to go far from home and it worked out pretty good and I always felt pretty comfortable with going to South Dakota State and wrestling for Greg Smith.
Craig Mattick:
You go to South Dakota State, this is 1975 and they're wrestling in the North Central Conference. What was the step-up like, moving from high school to college? I mean you saw success right away, but what was the step like once you first got there?
Rick Jensen:
Well, you learned real fast that with some of your teammates and mostly your coaches, if you could score or get away or create better defense or survive certain situations, you were going to have success. And you learned real fast that if I can get away or survive or ride the workouts that I had with Greg Smith or some of the coaches that were in that room, then I figured I could go with anybody. So you always kept that in mind because in that wrestling room you were going to take some beatings from ... if they weren't teammates, they were going to be your coaches. And I don't mean that in a negative way. I mean that those beatings were going to be positive from the standpoint that ... and you were going to have to figure things out technically.
And your skill level is going to have to now take another step up. There was no question about that. So I felt really good about that because we had everything in the room that we needed. We had an ex-high school teammate, not necessarily a teammate when I was on the varsity, but Mike Engels was an assistant coach that year. Greg Schmidt was the head coach and he's the one who recruited me there. So you had to work your tail off and everyone knew that. So I felt really good about the production I was having that year. I had some knockdown drag outs with some individuals in the North Central Conference. You learned real fast, the old North Central conference in wrestling.
And I'm sure in most sports felt that way was, it's one of the best conferences in the United States, meaning it was a Division II conference and you had the opportunity to go wrestle in Division I, if you wanted to. And so that conference had a reputation, a proven reputation that it's one of the best in the country. And so, it didn't take you long that whether you're going up to North Dakota or over to University of Northern Iowa or over into Minnesota against Mankato or St. Cloud, one of the other schools around. You were going to run into good kids. And so, it kept you on your toes and it obviously expanded your technique, and your thought pattern, as far as making sure you're always ready and making sure you're tough enough to go with whoever you need to go with.
Craig Mattick:
As a freshman at SDSU, you qualify for the National Wrestling Tournament, you lose in the quarter-finals. Did you consider that year a success, a successful year, not knowing exactly what to expect as a college wrestler?
Rick Jensen:
Yeah, I considered it a success. I mean, I was ... Much like in Watertown when I popped on the theme as a freshman and started having success. It surprised everybody else, but I didn't know any and Marv expected me to go out and win and so, that's just what he did. And so in college it was pretty much the same thing. You expect to show up and even though, some kids were not producing necessarily as a ... consistently as a team, it was important for me to get out there and make things happen. And so, you get put on the map and you get people's attention and you realize real fast that with success at the college level, comes leadership and everyone knew that if I'm going out there and that I was to be counted on.
So it was just a matter of starting to get a team to be more consistent and that sort of thing. And then at the end of the year, that year probably was when I finished up, I wasn't happy about how I finished. I wasn't happy about how that turnout was because the individual I beat the week before or two weeks before at the North Central Conference Finals, he went on to win the national title and I didn't place. And so, you find out there's a real fine line from results or no results. It didn't take anything away. It didn't mean that that individual forgot about me. He knew I was there, but he got the results and I didn't get the results in that national tournament and it was a learning lesson.
Craig Mattick:
And some motivation, probably motivation too because the next year, look at you, you're wrestling still at 126. Your record was 40 and seven, the first Jackrabbit to win 40 matches in the season. The division two wrestling championships are in Fargo and here you are, you get to the championship match and you're taking on the defending champion from a year earlier, 13 to two.
Rick Jensen:
Yeah, it was a pretty good year. We ended up ... We finished out that freshman year losing Greg Schmidt. He ended up going into private business with Daktronics. And so, I was a little bit heartbroken over that. And then, so we ended up picking up a new coach named Mickey Martin out of University of Oklahoma, or Oklahoma State, I believe. And so, he jumped on board and he brought in some kids from the south and some other coaches from different areas, some unique individuals that in the long run ended up helping me out, helping all of us out, obviously. And I didn't really have a fast start that year, but I did from mid-season on. Let's see, I placed in the Midlands that year in Chicago. Big, big tournament. A lot of the Olympians and D-1 wrestlers would go to that tournament.
That was a huge tournament. I felt really good about that tournament. And so, I placed at that tournament and then went on to win the D-2s in wrestling, the defending national champion from San Francisco, and our styles were somewhat similar and I think that caught that individual off guard and I major decision them and won the outstanding wrestler that year.
Craig Mattick:
Next year, you're back at the national finals, you're in Cedar Falls, Iowa, but you lose in the finals to a guy from Cal Bakersfield, in the finals again. But then here comes 1978. What happened in 1978?
Rick Jensen:
Well, in '78 I decided to redshirt. We had another coaching change. It was one of the things in college wrestling, you realize real fast that if you want to create havoc in your own mind, not necessarily that I created it, but if those things happen where changes are made at the college level, business is business. All of a sudden the guy who recruited you there, isn't your coach anymore and you get somebody new and he's there for two years and then, that individual leaves and I end up with another new coach and it was ... I came straight out of high school. I had not redshirted, went straight into things. Felt really good about stuff, and all of a sudden, started to second guess the system that I was in a little bit and decided I need to just focus on school.
I'm just going to go to school and I'll decide maybe down the road here whether I'm going to finish my senior year or just focus on school.
Craig Mattick:
How long did that take?
Rick Jensen:
Well, about halfway through that year, I suppose, it only ... things went better in the classroom for me. I felt pretty good about what I was doing in that area and then realized, took a break, definitely took a break from wrestling. Didn't spend a lot of time in the wrestling room that year and started coming back to that wrestling room a little bit later that year that I redshirted and decided that, yeah, I'm going to come back and work hard and get this last season in for my senior year. And knew at that point, that I wanted to be a coach, wanted to finish up strong, do it right, because I'm not far off from the workforce.
Craig Mattick:
Well, timing was pretty good. You do come back in '79 and look at that, Brookings is hosting the national championships. That had to be pretty cool. But you know what? You got to the championship again. In high school, you're at four state championship matches. In college, you got three of four and this was your last year, but you fell to a kid from Cal State Bakersfield. What happened in that match and then what were your thoughts after that very last match?
Rick Jensen:
Well, I know I got tired of seeing Cal State Bakersfield.
Craig Mattick:
The year before and this year.
Rick Jensen:
Yeah, they had a really super program, some of the better wrestlers in the country and they were really solid in an area that I was solid in and that was wrestling on the feet and they just gave me all kinds of problems. They're always tight matches, tough matches, but very disciplined wrestlers, fantastic efforts out of them. I think I was seeded fifth in that tournament that year. I had shoulder surgery back in October. Tried to make an early comeback, struggled with that a little bit and finally got on track and probably halfway through January and so, my season was a little bit short-lived because of my surgery, but I felt good about my comeback, felt good about going into the state tournament. Obviously, learned some things.
And that individual just did a good job with me, that year in the finals. Yeah, I was pretty disappointed in it, but you don't spend a lot of time looking back in the sport. You move on and that's about all you can do.
Craig Mattick:
Career record at SDSU, 128 wins, 24 losses. You graduate from SDSU and you talked about you wanted to be a teacher, be a coach. You did become a coach and a teacher in Spearfish, was that your first stop?
Rick Jensen:
That was my first job. I spent a year in grad school at SDSU. Kind of helped them out, helped my teammates out a little bit and got a little bit involved. Terry Lenander was the head wrestling coach at that time. So, I stuck around 3rd year, in the program. Learned some great valuable lessons through that year, that gave me my first experience, did a little bit of teaching at the college level in the PE area. And then, decided, it was time to jump in and get both feet wet so to speak. And walked over into Spearfish who really hadn't done that much as a wrestling team. They told me a lot about ... a lot of good kids and that sort of thing. I think I had one returning state place winner in that lineup that came up.
We had a lot of seniors in the wrestling room that year, my first year, and I know I found out how much work it was going to take very quickly and they found out how hard they were going to have to work to appease my standards. So it was a fun year. A lot of good memories from that season. A lot of good kids. We ended up, I believe, putting three guys in the finals that year. Our 185 pounder that year, ended up placing them in the USA Nationals and Greco-Roman that following summer. So those guys, I don't know, I'm not sure, I would've stuck around for me that year because they had to work their tails off. They were ... I was amazed at how hard they worked and it was interesting how hard I pushed them and how hard they were willing to work and not walk away from it.
So it was a fun season being ... I think we've ended up placing about five kids that year. I think we beat Marv Sherrill, the Watertown Arrows that year in the state term and I believe. And that was a personal goal, and you always want to impress your old coach, somebody you think so highly of. And Marv never ever liked losing, so I'm not so sure he looked at it that way, but he's the one who produced me and he's the one who pushed me and he is the one who taught me how to win, so I didn't know any other way how to do it. And if I could beat Marv Sherrill, it was never a negative thing. It was always a sign to me that Marv was very successful in pushing me.
Craig Mattick:
Four years at Spearfish, 20 years at Pierre. You're also then off to Rapid City Stevens, then Rapid City Central. I mean, what a lifetime of wrestling, Rick. Over three decades dedicating your expertise to the kids of South Dakota, what gave you the most enjoyment of coaching wrestling?
Rick Jensen:
Well, you always feel really, really, really good about success stories. Kids who win a state title and that sort of thing, but you're probably ... your most rewarding ones are you always know when you kind of got a potential state champion in the room and you really enjoy the heck out of the, success those kids have. It doesn't mean that it was a cakewalk. It doesn't mean that they didn't earn it. It doesn't mean that you didn't have to work hard. That you didn't have to make some tweaks here and there to get them to produce or to get them to get by certain kids. But it's those individuals that place at the state meet, get 7th, get 8th, get 5th, get 6th.
Maybe on occasion get third or fourth. That when the year started, people were thinking, who's it going to end up with in that weight class? Because obviously this kid can't wrestle there. We got to find somebody to wrestle or to step into the lineup here. There's got to be somebody else in the room and in the end, that individual that ends up keeping that spot ends up producing for you, ends up placing at the state meet. Ends up finishing the season at 500, but goes into the regional and places in the top three and makes it the state and knocks somebody off that was a returning state place winner and earns a spot and places.
Those are the kids in that, you realize real fast that man, that's pretty rewarding. That individual, you didn't even think it was going to be in your lineup when the year started. And so, when things like that happen, you realize just how much influence you got over the kids and how well they just work hard and listen, they can produce. So pretty rewarding. It's a lot of fun to watch those types of individuals. Not that it's not fun to have state champions, but those individuals give you a lot of pride because in reality, sometimes you know that individual's placing, but you're still trying to figure out how in the heck did this happen?
Craig Mattick:
South Dakota has had a great rich history of wrestlers, getting to the Olympics, performing at the Olympics, meddling at the Olympics. Did you ever try trying out for the Olympics?
Rick Jensen:
Well, no. That was always ... when you're going through things and towards the end of your high school career and going into your beginning of your college career, you get a little bit more realistic about stuff once you're in college. But I went to the 1978, I went to the world game try out in Squaw Valley. Out in that area, they had a training camp in that area and then that summer, myself and Jay Swanson went out there and wrestled at the trials and they weren't the finals. There were still some kids that were not there. So we had some good goals with individuals. I lost on criteria to one individual, so it was a good experience. Got to work out with Dan Gable and a lot of good kids out there.
They find out real fast that there's a whole different world if you want to live it. Those are the guys who are living it, and you wonder how, because it's not like today's wrestlers where you have financial backing or you belong to a club that we'll send you everywhere. We just jumped in a vehicle and we worked out hard that summer and we decided if Dan Gable owned will invite us, we're showing up. So just we took that as an honor in itself. Dan Gable gave us the okay, "Yep, you guys can come. You guys are good." And so that was fun. It was a good experience for us. But you knew when you walked out of there and you realize, "Okay, this isn't a group of wrestlers, I'm going to dominate. I can wrestle with them."
But certainly I'm not going to dominate these guys and it's going to be a grind. If you want to stick around and live here and walk and breathe wrestling-
Craig Mattick:
That would've been the place to be. Yeah.
Rick Jensen:
Yeah, it'd be the place to be, but it's not a very realistic place for you realize that I have to move on, I've got to have a job, I've got to have an income. I can't live out of my car. It's not going to happen. But it was a fun experience and that's the closest I ever came to it. Get to wrestle some of the guys that you know are going to be on the world team and obviously, be part of the Olympic System. It was fun. It was something you can look back at, a little bit, have a little fun thinking about it. But yeah, it became a very, very quick reality that that's a different world.
Craig Mattick:
Two more questions. You've seen an explosion of girls wrestling in South Dakota. Are you surprised with the number of girls who are taking up the sport in the state?
Rick Jensen:
No. We would see it through the years. We wouldn't see girls teams, but we would see girls competing with the boys and all the youth wrestling through the years. When I was a coach at Peer and I was coaching out here and I took my kids around to tournaments and stuff like that, that once in a while we'd run into pretty hard nose, solid, technically solid, hardworking, solid girls that would compete with the boys. But we knew that there was always going to be a little bit of dissension there with the fans, because we knew that not only was there going to be some resistance with the girls wrestling the boys, but there obviously was a push in those days where the fans wanted their own sport, meaning wrestling.
They wanted their own impact on the sport of wrestling through girls, wrestling girls and not having to share the limelight with the boys. They wanted their own system. So we knew it was coming. Obviously in South Dakota, it started a little bit later than other places like Minnesota and the state of Washington and places like that, probably Iowa. So I help out with ... I still volunteer and help out with East Middle School wrestling here in Rapid City. My son coaches out there and teaches out there. My middle son. And so, I help out and getting involved with his wrestling program at that middle school level. I immediately walked in for the first time because I'd sat out for ... I'd already retired and had been done for three years.
And then, walked into where they have girls and the boys wrestling, and they're not wrestling each other. They have their own system. They have their own competitions. They might be at the same location, but their brackets are full of girls. And so, it was a little bit surprising that ... how quickly it took over. But after you realize, you've been in the room and you've been around the girls and they're picking up technique and you're showing them things you realize real fast. Boy, this reminds me of my seventh grade year when we worked our tails off and our expectations were to be successful. Ours expectations were to pin somebody. Our expectations were to get after things.
And these girls, that was the one thing that probably caught me off guard more than anything is that these girls are serious. They're real, real serious. They're hard workers. They're probably in some respects, more serious about their success level than even the boys in certain rooms. They get after it and they're very, very serious about being successful in this sport. And these girls, from what I can tell, they're working really hard. And so because they're working so hard. It doesn't surprise me that the sport is growing and exploding to the point where it's very recognizable and very acceptable to the fans. Everyone is really enjoying the skill level of the girls, how quickly they've picked this up.
And how hard they are willing to get after it, and it's fun to watch. And I think the fans and all the coaches across this state and all the other states are recognizing that, wow, this has going much better than some people, the skeptics have even realized.
Craig Mattick:
Last one, Rick, you are retired. What keeps you busy right now in Rapid City?
Rick Jensen:
Well, what keeps me busy in the late fall, early winter is I am helping with the wrestling at East Middle School, so that's kind of fun. That's been pretty rewarding. It's always fun to stay involved and see how the wrestling is coming around at the middle school level. And then I've been involved for 35 years, even when I was coaching, because that's where I started in Pierce, South Dakota with my driver's ed. I've been doing that for 35 years back in 1989, got started 1989, 1990, and got started. And so I've been doing that as a part-time. Being very busy in it, but obviously, being retired, I've got to watch the number of hours I put in a year because I don't want to go over that point.
Get my own retirement reduced because I've worked too hard. So I've got to make sure I keep a calculator close back because I'm not going to take a fake cut just because of the driver's ed, but I have a lot of fun with it. Enjoy it. Yeah, I've stayed busy with that. Other than that, ride a lot of motorcycles in the Black Hills and take advantage of this area, obviously, meaning the Black Hills. I certainly know where the State's bike trail is.
Craig Mattick:
The Mickelson Trail. Yeah.
Rick Jensen:
Yeah, the Mickelson Trail, spent a lot of time on that bike trail. You bet. I've gone through that probably about four times. So yeah, that's a great environment, great area to live in.
Craig Mattick:
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