If there’s one thing that Daniel McCune, Erik Duus and Bobby Soto know and believe in, it’s wrestling.
Since a young age, the sport instilled in them a lasting passion and drive that they want to share with the rest of the community.
When the trio is not coaching the Fremont High wrestling teams, they are coaching with the Sunnyvale Wrestling Club. The club primarily works with high school-age wrestlers, but also some middle schoolers. But the life-long wrestlers want to start even younger.
They hope to kick off a minimum four-school pilot season next year at Lakewood, Bishop, San Miguel and Ellis elementary schools by the fall.
Volunteer coaches would bring a mat to each school for a 6-8 week program that would expose 1-5 grade students to the sport sooner.
Thanks to the Sunnyvale Host Lions Club, the club already has its first wrestling mat and is on to its second. The club hopes to eventually have one for each of the 10 schools in the Sunnyvale School District.
“A lot of the lessons you learn through wrestling–a one-on-one sport that requires a lot of physical discipline–are life lessons: loss, failure, and how to bounce back–facing your challenges one-on-one,” Erik Duus said.
Duus, a former assistant wrestling coach at Stanford University, is also a Japanese National Wrestling Champion, two-time Freestyle Open All-American and a University of Wisconsin and University of Iowa wrestling alumnus.
For coach and life-long wrestler Bobby Soto, expanding the wrestling club’s program into the elementary schools is really about offering access to mentorship.
“The foundational piece of all of this is to give these kids access to mentorship,” Soto said. “When these kids know we’re keeping an eye on them, that they have our support, that makes an impact. We’re taking it upon ourselves and want to make this happen for the community.”
Soto, the former head coach of Foothill Bakersfield High and a Fremont High alumnus, took over as Fremont High’s head coach in 2000.
Daniel McCune, also a Fremont High alumnus, joined the coaching staff at Fremont in 2010. He also served as head coach for Columbia Middle School and as a wrestling coach in Santa Cruz.
McCune believes student involvement in school-related activities creates learning opportunities that foster skill development, team-building, commitment, responsibility, follow-through and character development.
“This will hopefully open the door for the Sunnyvale School District to increase opportunities to students through an extensive athletic program that would have the potential to increase and include a wide range of school-related activities to encourage student participation,” McCune said. “We have partnered with the Curtis Lee Sanders Foundation to work to increase the sport offerings once we get wrestling going and show its benefit.”
The club would like to branch out to other sports, as well as visual and performing arts. But first and foremost, the coaches are starting with wrestling because that’s what they know and love.
The Sunnyvale Wrestling Club is a nonprofit that works to bring positive experiences to local youth through wrestling at no cost to attend. However, participants are required to be members of USA Wrestling, which charges $40 a year. To learn more about the club, visit sunnyvalewrestlingclub.com.