Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Paul Mance
Paul Mance totaled 348 victories, the most in Southern Conference history, in his 33 seasons as wrestling coach at Appalachian State.
Last season was his final one as coach. He still attends matches, and is helping with fund-raising and ASU’s wrestling camp, but he said it’s been an adjustment.
“It’s a whole lot different sitting in the bleachers watching than it is on the bench,” said Mance, who guided the Mountaineers to eight regular-season and five Southern Conference tournament titles.
“It’s a funny feeling walking into the gym and not coaching after so many years. But everything ends at one time or another.”
He said he didn’t really want it to end.
“I think in my heart I would have liked to coach forever,” Mance said. “I was ready to retire as far as…letting go to someone who is a lot younger and is an eager-beaver. But it’s hard. Do I feel like I could still do it? Yeah, I feel like I could have done it for quite a while longer but I also want to do other things in my life so it’s good to be able to do that to.”
More free time is an upside, he said.
“The fun part is coaching wrestlers out there on the mat, and just working with the kids being with the team,” Mance said. “I miss that. But the recruiting part was never as much fun. You do a lot of work and don’t get the kid a lot of times. It’s not always easy.”
Among his career highlights are coaching Olympic wrestlers Ike Anderson and Dale Oliver, and establishing a thriving wrestling camp.
“Our camp has become so large that we now have literally 100s of guys that wrestled for us that now bring their kids to camp,” Mance said. “That’s very rewarding, knowing you hopefully had something to do with developing and influencing young lives. It makes you feel like you’ve done something useful.”
Mance was presented a plaque for his accomplishments with the ASU wrestling program a week ago before ASU’s final regular-season match. He will be honored for his Southern Conference accomplishments during this weekend’s league tournament at Davidson.