Laying the FOUNDATIONS
Demons’ coach is working to ground his team in the fundamentals
It’s been quite some time since Santa Fe High School has been a force in wrestling. Well, in reality, the Demons are still looking for their first team championship in the sport.
But new director of the program, Mark Hussey, is taking a long-range approach to turning Santa Fe into wrestling powerhouse.
He wants to get them while their young.
A former Demons wrestler, Hussey is creating a youth program targeting elementary and middle school wrestlers to get them well grounded in the fundamentals of the sport long before they reach high school.
“It’s almost like starting at ground level,” he said. “I wouldn’t say it’s more important than high school, but it sure puts down the foundations.”
Hussey wrestled at the youth level in Santa Fe before moving to Florida for the bulk of his high school years, returning for his senior year to Santa Fe to graduate in 1989.
Since then, he’s coached at the youth levels in numerous places, although this is his first head coaching gig.
Getting them early and instilling a love of the sport is crucial to long-term success locally, Hussey said.
“As far as the youth wrestlers, we have eight kids who wrestle for me pretty steady,” he said. “In the next two to three weeks, I’d like to fill this wrestling room with 30 to 50 kids and get them exposed to wrestling.”
The goal is to put together some traveling teams to get down to Albuquerque and get more experience against a larger pool of athletes, he said.
“We want to get these kids out to wrestle against other kids in the state,” Hussey said. “I would like to see them from second grade through middle school. Our season is going to start roughly about the beginning of December and end in the beginning of February. We’ll pick and choose how far we want to travel, but we want to have two places to wrestle every weekend.”
As for the Demons themselves, although the prep season is still several months from starting, there is already a solid group working hard in the Mike Lujan Wrestling Room, named for the coach under whom Hussey himself wrestled.
“It’s truly an honor, first of all to get this job, and second of all, to be in the Mike Lujan wrestling room,” he said. “It’s no doubt an honor.”
Although this year’s team will be captained by senior Sammy Martinez, the bulk of the returning talent are sophomores, Hussey said.
“We have a lot of sophomores, but not much after that,” he said.
Sophomore Miguel Padilla and junior Isaac Beltran are both returning state runnerups who will help anchor the squad.
“We really need to replenish the program,” Hussey said.
Still, the expectations are high that the Demons can improve from their seventhplace 6A finish last season and perhaps challenge for a trophy this year in 4A.
“I have some great leaders in this room,” he said. “I’m thinking they’re going to set the bar pretty high for themselves. They’re natural in that they’ve been raised wrestling. They’re a tough group and I see them really stepping up for the challenge. I have high expectations and this group can meet those expectations for any type of situation in front of them.”