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William Ressel is Parkview’s head wrestling coach, but Willie Wrestle?
“It’s a lot different being on this side of things because you can’t wrestle,” Ressel said.
Those days are behind him. Moving forward it’s all about the kids.
“If you want to make it at wrestling,” Nick Litchy said, “you have to make it your life. You can part time do football and be good, you can part time do track and still be good, if you part time do wrestling you’re not going to get anywhere.”
As a sophomore, Nick Litchy started wrestling to get better at football, but his heart changed his mind.
“I started here, got a few wins, now I got hooked on it,” Litchy said. “Now it’s my main sport, my main focus.”
More focused than ever heading into his senior year after just missing the cut for last year’s state tournament.
“I had him,” Litchy said about last year’s final match. “Almost had him on his back and I knew he was one of the best wrestlers in the state he was undefeated at the time and I got excited and I lost control and rolled through onto my back and lost.”
Lucky for him his coach knows the feeling. As a junior at Central Methodist University, he finished sixth at Regionals… the top four qualified for nationals.
“I understand what it’s like to be so close to realizing your dream of being a state qualifier, of being a national qualifier, and then spending all summer working in the weight room and at camps,” Ressel said.
Now coach Ressel uses his past as guidance.
“I say, ‘visualize your opponent, who’s across from you?”
“For me it’s Dakota Davis from Camdenton,” Litchy said. “he’s the only kid who’s consistently beat me every year.”
No matter how Nick’s senior season ends, it’s what comes after that makes his coach the most proud.
“The opportunity to have a kid go wrestle at college would be great,” Ressel said, “and Nick would be my first kid to go wrestle and it’s extra special having gone through those steps and seeing him go through it is pretty cool.”
