Earned recognition

OTHELLO — Sammy Rocha said he learned to coach wrestling from the best. 

Rocha, the girls wrestling coach at Othello High School, was named co-Coach of the Year in the Central Washington Athletic Conference. He shared the award with Mark Kondo of Quincy. 

The Huskies finished second in state Class 2A competition in Rocha’s first year as head coach.  

“I’m from Othello and I’ve been blessed to have legendary coaches,” Rocha said. “I’m learning from the best coaches in the state of Washington.”  

There’s a long list of Othello coaches who have had an impact on the sport at OHS and across the state. 

“When I was in high school Wayne Schutte was my head coach. I learned his organization and his tenacity,” Rocha said. Schutte paid close attention to detail, he said. 

“Then I was fortunate enough to work with Ruben Martinez. He was quite the opposite of Wayne Schutte. He was more aggressive, he was more, ‘I’m going to be in your face and I’m going to dominate you. You’re going to have to beat me, and you’re not going to.’ I got a lot of that from him,” Rocha said. 

Kondo was another influence, Rocha said.  

“He was very, very technical,” he said. “So many of the techniques that we use today are from Mark Kondo. And then when I worked with the boys program, I was under Rudy Ochoa. It’s a (combination) of all those coaches I take ideas from and continue to use.”  

One of the lessons he’s learned, he said, is that it’s crucial for the coach to have confidence in the team, and for the team to have confidence in the coaches. He told his wrestlers early on they had the potential for a great season, even a state championship. 

“They (said) ‘Yeah, okay, whatever.’ But when they started seeing the improvement – and they saw it every week – they were starting to become believers. ‘You know what? We think we can win this thing. Now that we all have this goal, let’s get more people on board.’ And everybody started jumping on,” he said. 

After the season Rocha said he asked his wrestlers what they thought made the difference. 

“And a lot of them came back with, ‘The coaches believed in us.’ I pulled a couple of them aside, and said, ‘What do you mean?’ I mean, every coach, I would think, believes in their athletes. And they just said, ‘With the technique that we were practicing, and they saw it working in matches, and they knew that this was going to work.”  

Othello was beating other good teams, and the girls saw it, he said. 

“That’s when they finally started to acknowledge the fact that, ‘Hey, we’re really good,’” he said.  

His team also appreciated the low-key and encouraging style of coaching. 

“Nobody ever yelled,” he said. “We never yelled (that) they needed to be on time, or they needed to hustle, or they needed to do this or that. And they felt really comfortable.” 

Rocha gave credit to his assistant coaches Abraham Gonzalez, Julian Mendez, Jaxon Rocha, Lupe Perez and Aylin Gonzalez.  

“I have really good assistant coaches,” he said. “We do spend a lot of time together, we bounce ideas off each other, we’re always collaborating. On that staff, I honestly think we have three legitimate head coaches.” 

    The Othello girls wrestling coaching staff and friends stop for a photo during the Mat Classic at the Tacoma Dome.