The Jaguar wrestling team will be on the prowl this year under new coaching staff led by
former Maize South assistant wrestling coach Nate Alvarez. Alvarez wants to focus on creating a new culture for Andover Central wrestling and teaching the athletes about more than just the sport.
Alvarez hopes to make changes and make it his own program. Part of this is getting his athletes to buy into what he is teaching them.
“I am trying to change the culture and atmosphere. I’m huge into buying into what we are doing. Once everyone is all in then I believe we can be successful. Really pushing the fact we are one team, a family, implementing goal setting, mindset training, and always going the extra mile in class, wrestling, and in life,” he said.
The coaching staff is focusing on the ideas of winning and never quitting a match.
“At Maize South, I started a saying ‘6 minutes’ which is the length of a match. It was to stress the importance of wrestling the whole time to be constantly improving and looking to score. Here I started the saying ‘Jags on the prowl’. It means just focusing on wrestling the whole time and having the predator mindset by pushing the pace on going after the win,” Alvarez said.
Alvarez isn’t a stranger to the wrestling scene. He has wrestled at multiple levels, including a 21-win season in high school.
“I wrestled at Salina South High School. Following that, I wrestled two years at Newman University, then at Bacone College in Muskogee, OK, and then wrestled a year and a half at Wichita State trying to help them start a wrestling
program,” Alvarez said.