Bonduel wrestling coach Chris Rank retires

Bonduel High School wrestling head coach Chris Rank has decided to call it a career, retiring after 30 years on the coaching staff.

“Coaching all these years has been an incredible journey for me and my family. I have been truly blessed,” said Rank.

Family helped introduce Rank to wrestling when he was in high school and kept him in the sport on several occasions throughout his coaching career.

His brother, Greg, was one of the individuals that talked Rank into trying out for wrestling in high school. While Rank admits football was his favorite sport, wrestling “certainly made me the person I am.”

Rank wrestled on the varsity team his final three years of high school, placing third at state in the 138-pound weight class as a senior in 1981.

He volunteered for the wrestling team his first two years out of high school before joining the staff as an assistant under Dan Weidner. He was an assistant for three years, getting to coach his younger brother, Kevin, over that time before getting a job at Pierce Manufacturing and having to give up coaching while working second shift.

After five years, Rank was moved to first shift and returned to volunteering for three seasons.

After the 1993-94 season, Weidner stepped down as coach and Jeff DeLorme took over. Rank became an assistant under DeLorme and served in that position for four years.

“Those four years were amazing,” said Rank, who got to coach his youngest brother, Jeff, during that time. “I truly enjoyed being an assistant where I could drill and wrestle with the team to help make them better.”

There was a talented freshman class the first year of that four-year timeframe. The team ended up placing second at the state team tournament when that class were juniors and then claimed the school’s first team title as seniors, which was one of Rank’s most memorable moments during his time on the coaching staff.

After the 1997-98 season, DeLorme decided to step down as coach, leaving the future of the program in question.

“I enjoyed my role as an assistant and had never even dreamt of being a head coach,” said Rank. “I guess God had different plans.”

After talking things over with his wife, Judy, Rank decided to apply for the vacant head coaching position.

Rank recalled talking with administrator Dr. Peter Behnke and informing him he’d be committed for at least seven years — to see his son Lucas through high school graduation.

“Those seven years flew by with some incredible team success and individual success,” said Rank, who intended to turn the reins over to someone else after the 2004-05 season.

Again, family kept Rank in the sport.

Rank’s daughter Peri was set to start her freshman year of high school the following year and wanted to serve as the wrestling manager under her dad while having him coach her friends. “I looked at Judy and said ‘I guess I’m not done yet,’” said Rank.

Rank’s teams continued to find success over those four seasons, but Rank continued to coach after that, racking up dual wins and qualifying several individual wrestlers for state along the way.

Now after 30 total years on staff — seven as an assistant before the last 23 years as head coach — Rank is calling it a career.

“One thing that I am very proud of is that most of my staff, whether in high school, middle school or youth over the years has come through our program,” said Rank. “Also, there have been some of our wrestlers that get involved in helping other programs. Also, year after year we have wrestlers coming back to help out on their Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks which is very nice. We stress to athletes to give back to the sport.”

Over his 23-year stint as head coach, Rank’s teams accumulated a dual record of 309-121-1. Sixty individual wrestlers qualified for state, with 40 of them placing in the top six.

Of the school’s eight individual state champions all-time, Rank was the head coach for seven of them. Six others placed second at state.

Rank’s teams claimed six conference titles and five regional championships.

“A huge part of my coaching philosophies was confidence,” said Rank, who is a Class of 2012 member of the Bonduel Hall of Fame and member of the 2009 wrestling Hall of Fame class. “I felt that was very important to have that confidence when competing. I always felt if you didn’t believe you could win, the end result probably wouldn’t be so good. I stressed that in life as well. You need to have that confidence in whatever you set out to do in life.”

“His strongest suit over the years was being able to motivate anybody to believe that they could win,” said Chad Bogacz, who wrestled for, coached alongside and has known Rank for about 30 years.

“He made you believe, even if you weren’t as talented as the person you were stepping on the mat against, that you were going to come off a winner. It went from a kid trying to win their first match, to a .500 wrestler, all the way to trying to win a state championship.”

Rank intends to be a fan of the sport going forward, although he said he’d always be willing to give advice for the team’s next coach.

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