LHS cuts ties with Olson

LEMOORE -- How do you say goodbye to a legend? The wrestlers at Lemoore High are having a very hard time doing so. It was announced last week that the second winningest wrestling coach in the state of California, Kent Olson, will no longer guide the Tigers. "(Athletic director) Thom Sembritzki said to me that the administration would like to go in a different direction," Olson said.

Olson's situation as coach at Lemoore High has been a hot topic since he took the West Hills College Lemoore coaching position two years ago. Olson says last season that the West Hills' administration no longer wanted him to coach at Lemoore High.

"It's really not that we wanted to go a different direction,'' Sembritzki said. "We tried to do the interim kind of thing last year with [Justin] McLelland, but that really didn't work out well. Right now, the best thing for Lemoore is to hire a new coach and that's tough to do if Olson is going to be there in the shadows."

Last year, McLelland was head coach at Lemoore, while Olson ran the program from what was officially an assistant coach's post. He has continued to work with the team, and is now doing so via a wrestling class he teaches at West Hills.

"I just think after 21 years, I want to see the program go into good hands. This is the No. 1 recruiting school in the West Hills-Lemoore district and I want the baton passed on to someone who is going to respect the tradition," said Olson, who ranks in the Top 20 nationally in dual wins with over 500. "Right now, that's not happening. There's no one in the room with these kids. They've been forgotten about and pushed to the side. Right now the kids are my main concern. I've made some promises to some of the families and I need to see it through."

Olson has coached the Tigers to 14 straight West Yosemite League titles, 15 titles in 21 seasons and in doing so he has become one of the more respected coaches in the state.

"What Olson has done for wrestling and for Lemoore High is amazing," Sembritzki said. "This is by far the best program at our school. He will be missed."

In some senses he's already being missed.

"There's no wrestling team without Olson," said junior Alex Perez, who is one of the school's top returners. "Where's the team at right now? We are supposed to be getting better and we don't even have a coach. Right now we really don't have a team and if it wasn't for coach Olson having his college class here, we wouldn't be wrestling at all."

The Tigers finished ninth in the state in March, as 119-pounder Brandon Rocha carried the team with a runner up finish.

Lemoore returns the bulk of its team and Olson had been hoping to prepare for a state title run.

"I think that last year we could have done better, but we got a late start and some of that is my fault and I take responsibility for that," Olson said. "We finished ninth, but we return most everybody and have some new faces in the lineup and I honestly believe that this is a team that could achieve a state title if things went right."

The concern now isn't on titles of any sort for the Tigers, though.

"I don't think people really understand what Olson does for our team. He has been with most of us since we

started wrestling years ago," said Nick Sierra, who was a win away from placing at 140 pounds last season as a sophomore.

"I know without Olson I can't win a state title. He's the only person that can peak me at the right time. We're really down as a team right now. We have no practices, no coach really and we're not going to be the team people thought that we could be without Olson. We were supposed to be a Top 5 team in the state, but I'm not sure how many of us can even get to state without Olson. He's the guy that's going to get us to college."

Olson estimates in his 32 years of coaching and teaching he has sent more than 400 kids to college and says he is more proud of that number than the wins.

Olson's departure from the program is shocking to the parents, who held an informal meeting last week with Olson to figure out what was going to happen with the team.

"I think the whole thing is very unfair to coach Olson. After 21 years of building a program from nothing this is what he gets," said Narciso Lopez, who is the father of Vincent Rubio and Nate Lopez. "It's unfair that the college and high school can't come together and have some sort of agreement. He's built this program to one of the more prominent programs in the state and for them to say thank you, but we don't need your services any more isn't right."

Lopez' son Vincent Rubio has been one of Olson's top wrestlers the past couple of seasons and Nate will be an eighth-grader this year, but competes for the Lemoore Farmboyz youth wrestling program Olson runs.

"I've known Olson for over 20 years and been part of this program for about six years now," Lopez said. "Right now I know there is a lot of animosity in the room with the administrations not wanting Olson in the room. The kids are taking it pretty hard. We understand there are a lot of hard feelings there, but all we as parents want right now is what's best for the kids. We have a lot of very good kids in this program and I don't want to say they're not going to do well with Olson not here, but I honestly believe they won't do as well as they could do with him here."

Olson says he still wants to be part of high school wrestling in some form, but West Hills will not allow it.

"I know that West Hills has a vision of me wearing the school colors to a dual meet and shaking hands and doing some recruiting and I respect that vision," Olson said. "But I also have visions, visions about wrestling that might not be the same as their visions.

"Bottom line is that I've always wanted to do what's best for wrestling, what's best for Lemoore and most importantly what's best for the kids. I know that I can do both. I can coach Lemoore and West Hills and be successful at both. I just want to continue to still be part of the Lemoore High program and then pass the baton over to someone I trust."

The high school is still looking for a new coach.

"We are going to hire someone and it's going to be tough to follow Kent, but there's going to be someone coaching at Lemoore and it can't be Kent anymore," Sembritzki said.

Olson says coaching vacancies at the high school level is a major concern of his.

"This is a major problem right now and this is another reason why I should be coaching high school," Olson said. "There are seven coaching vacancies in the WYL and EYL. Seven schools in our recruiting district don't have coaches. If I was able to coach at a high school I could bring my college kids in and mentor them, so that they could one day be a coach.

"That's one of my biggest regrets right now. In all my years of coaching, there's not one person that has stepped up to come in here and learn to coach and take over this program. That's something that I wish I could go back and change."

The reporter can be reached at 583-2431.

(June 24, 2008)