The Front Row with JIM LANDERS Feb. 18, 2011

Jeff Moffat knows what it takes to develop a winning wrestling program.

The recipe is to take a huge amount of time and mix it with an organization of enthusiastic people and you get a winning team that perpetuates itself year after year.

If the CEO of this organization is good enough, you even get a state championship like Coeur d'Alene won last year. This state championship was a result of a carefully followed plan that is well known to produce results, but takes someone capable of implementing this plan.

To develop and continue a winning wrestling program like what Coeur d'Alene High has, now takes more than just coaching takedowns and reversals. People skills are paramount in this job because wrestling is very tough and if the athletes are not treated like family they quit or under perform.

JEFF MOFFAT started in 1995 as an assistant to Pat Whitcomb at Lake City High School. He then moved to Coeur d'Alene High as an assistant for three more years. In 2001, he took over as head wrestling coach.

The groundwork for change soon began with Jeff in charge. The little kids wrestling was recognized as an essential part of developing a winning program. What better way to nurture the kids than to bring to your own facility and treat them like family.

Kevin Roberts, the assistant wrestling coach at NIC and Jeff's brother-in-law, helped move the kids program from NIC to Coeur d'Alene High and the Buzzsaw wrestling club was started in 2002. One main family theme they instigated at Buzzsaw was to not let any kid drop out for lack of encouragement or money.

The kids don't just show up at this club. Instead, the kids and their parents are adopted. The coaches know they are going to ask a lot from the kids and therefore, the parents need to be believers and committed from the start. Without this family commitment the rigors of the sport cause severe attrition among the participants.

TO ATTEND a wrestling tournament at Coeur d'Alene High demonstrates how well this family idea works.

The parents of the wrestlers are everywhere. Concessions, admissions, scoring tables, set-up and clean up - the parents are there getting it done. This saves money, this makes money, and most importantly it frees the coaches so they can coach and tend to the kids.

These same parents help with the financial needs of the wrestling program. It takes money to send kids and coaches to tournaments and buy equipment for those who cannot afford it.

Car washes and yard sales happen in the summer, all with the parents helping to fund the family treasury. Wrestlers are horrible golfers but they also have a summer fundraiser and charge people who laugh. This makes big dollars.

LIKE ANY well-run business, this wrestling organization practices goal setting as well as takedowns.

Last year's seniors on the state championship team had set the goal of being state champs when they were freshmen. Each year the seniors set the team goals for the year, which get posted in the practice room.

Another goal is that even though not everyone in the practice room is a state champ, they all are expected to practice like one every day. One of Jeff's goals is to promote competition in his practice room, so he requires all varsity wrestlers to have wrestle-offs regardless of skill levels.

The time it takes for the CEO to run this program is immense. The competition starts in October with the junior high season and also the Buzzsaw club. This means that grades 1-8 are all at Coeur d'Alene High. Canfield is not set up well for daily practice so Jeff has that group of kids over to his school to practice in conjunction with the Buzzsaw club.

The high school season starts with a couple of weeks overlap so they have one huge family of wrestlers in the padded room. The high school season concludes in February, but the freestyle season starts right away and runs into June. Now it is summer and time to do fundraisers and go to Fargo, N.D., for 10 days where the junior nationals take place and the competition is as tough as it gets. Jeff Moffat's program boasts four All-Americans from this prestigious tournament.

AS YOU can see, running a winning high school program is a lifestyle. Any wrestling program tired of being beat by the Coeur d'Alene High family of wrestling better realize how deep this program is.

It will take a large number of kids committed to hard work, along with their parents willing to do the same and a CEO to run it with a 100 percent commitment to the task of producing winning wrestlers in order to compete with Coeur d'Alene High.

Jim Landers is a retired dentist and a former wrestling coach and official. He can be reached via phone at 819-3579 or via e-mail at [email protected].