Cedar Grove-Belgium seeks girls’ wrestling coach

Cedar Grove-Belgium High School is looking for a girls’ wrestling coach.

The new program has somewhere from five to 11 girls interested in participating, mirroring area schools that have been adding girls’ programs the past few seasons.

The School Board on Sept. 9 approved adding a girls’ coach for this wrestling season, which starts in late fall and goes into late winter.

“The sport of girls wrestling is growing crazy fast. If we weren’t meeting that opportunity for our girls, we would be doing them a disservice,” Principal Josh Ketterhagen said.

“It’s going to grow within two or three years. It’s going to be huge,” Athletic Director Megan Kautzer said.

She said the request for the coach was based on the demonstrated student interest, the opportunity to expand athletic participation for female students and on comparisons with girls’ wrestling programs in neighboring districts.

Ozaukee’s eight-member girls’ program won the Big East Conference last season and has its own coach.

Manitowoc Lutheran had three girls compete last year and shared a boys’ coach. Reedsville has five to seven girls and its own assistant coach designated to the team.

Grafton has a handful of girls who are coached by the boys’ coaching staff. Port Washington has its own girls’ coach for its group of female wrestlers.

The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association added a separate individual state girls’ wrestling tournament in 2022, and the sport has grown since. Many meets throughout the season are for girls’ teams only. Some are held in conjunction with boys’ meets, while others are in different places on different days.

The School Board wrestled with what level of coach to add.

The district pays varsity coaches $4,467 in sports such as football, volleyball, basketball, baseball, soccer and boys’ wrestling. Junior varsity/varsity assistants receive 70% of that, or $3,127.

Ketterhagen said he was seeking a JV level coach to start since he doesn’t think the boys’ and girls’ wrestling coaches are at the same level of responsibility.

Boys’ coach Quinn Hoopman, who led the boys’ team to a Division 3 state runner-up finish and had 10 wrestlers qualify for last year’s individual tournament, wants help for the girls’ program.

“My biggest concern was getting the dedicated coach for it,” he said. “However many girls it is, I can’t be in two places at one time or put as much time into it.”

There are 12 weight classes for girls and 14 for boys.

Board President Jeremy Spriggs said the board is “walking that tightrope of being good stewards of the community’s tax dollars and also then providing those opportunities for our students to participate in these types of athletics.”

But when the board heard the minor differences in pay, it unanimously approved hiring a girls’ wrestling coach at the same level as varsity coaches in the other major sports.

The school, like it does with other sports and activities, will watch the program to determine if it needs to try to boost its numbers, co-op with another school or dismantle it, Ketterhagen said.

Hoopman said he knows of three people who might be interested in the position.

Those interested are asked to call Kautzer at (920) 668-8686, ext. 554 or email her at mkautzer@cgbrockets.com.