Article: #WrestlingWednesday Feature: Coast to Coast Path for Kevin Lake

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Brought to you by EI Sports

 

By JEREMY HINES

Thehines7@gmail.com

 

MANCHESTER – Kevin Lake wasn’t a great wrestler back at New Haven High School. He was just a one-time regional qualifier. But what Lake lacked in wrestling success, he has made up for in coaching success. He has found his calling in coaching the sport he loves.

 

“I was very average in high school and college,” Lake said. “But I felt like I blossomed as a coach after traveling around and learning from some of the best coaches out there. I was always a mat rat. I was always in the coaches’ rooms trying to learn more about the sport. When you become a coach, you learn things better than when you are an athlete. You get a different perspective.”

 

Lake was recently hired as the new head wrestling coach at Manchester University. While he doesn’t have the athletic pedigree some coaches have, Lake has certainly immersed himself in learning the sport of wrestling.

 

Lake grew up in a coaches’ home. His dad, Gary, was a long time football coach at New Haven, Ft. Wayne Wayne and Ft. Wayne Elmhurst.

 

“Coaching was a big part of my childhood,” Lake said. “Some of my fondest memories are with my dad in the locker rooms and on the sports field. Sports really played a huge role in my life.”

 

Gary Lake is a member of the Manchester Hall of Fame. So is Kevin’s twin sister, Leanne.

 

“My sister was a much better athlete than me,” Lake said. “She played basketball and softball at Manchester. She’s also in the Hall of Fame there. I’m the only one not in the Hall of Fame. I guess my only shot now is to get there by coaching.”

 

Lake wrestled at Manchester under coach Tom Jarman. Lake refers to Jarman as a legend in the coaching world and as a mentor.

 

After graduating from Manchester, Lake pursued his graduate degree at Central Michigan University. There he got involved with the wrestling program, and was able to learn from coach Tom Borrelli.

 

“Central Michigan is really where I got the confidence and understanding of what it took to become a high level wrestling coach,” Lake said. “Even today, what I bring to the table is a lot of what I learned as a graduate assistant.”

 

Lake took his first head coaching job at Division III, Mac Murray in Jacksonville, Ill. That job became a spring board to go to Princeton University as the head assistant coach.

 

I coached an All-American there in Greg Parker,” Lake said.

 

After Princeton, Lake spent a year at South Dakota State and worked with coach Jason Liles – who was an extremely successful Division II coach working his first job in Division I.

 

Lake’s travels didn’t end there, however. That summer he got a call from a good friend, Shawn Charles, who was just hired as the head coach at Fresno State in California. Lake became his head assistant and moved his family out west.

 

Fresno State dropped its wrestling program after just two years.

 

Lake got out of the college coaching realm for a while at that point. He joined Beat the Streets in Los Angeles, a program that helps teach responsibility and values through wrestling.

 

“I always had coaching in my heart and in my blood,” Lake said. “I knew if the right opportunity came up, I’d take it. That’s when the job at Manchester came open and I jumped at the chance.”

 

Lake is married with two daughters. He moved to Manchester about a month ago, and recently his daughters saw snow for the first time.

 

“The snow was like one of those slaps in the face welcome homes,” Lake said. “I didn’t realize how soft I had gotten. The snow is beautiful, but man is it cold.”

 

Lake believes he has taken a little bit from each coach he worked with or was coached by over the years.

 

“At Central Michigan I learned how to lead and how to run practices,” Lake said. “My time at Fresno State I learned under one of the best technicians in the sport. Shawn Charles taught me knowledge and technique.

 

“At Princeton, the philosophy of Princeton athletics as a whole really related to how I want my athletes to be. It was a value of higher education and pursuit of excellence that I really liked.”

 

At Manchester, Lake knows the program isn’t going to become a national powerhouse overnight. But he wants his athletes to all be high achievers in athletics, character and wrestling.

 

“I want them to be the best in the classroom, on the mats and to act with class on the streets,” Lake said.

 

Lake said when looking for wrestlers for his program, he looks for kids with a workmanlike attitude. He likes aggressiveness – guys that will push the pace and also have good defensive skills. He wants smart wrestlers with strong core values.

 

“I look for effort, too,” Lake said. “Often times you can tell more about how a kid comes back from barely losing a match. You can tell if he’s hungry and has something to prove. Those are the kids that I think can thrive. I want those type of kids.”

 

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