Editor’s note: In the Colorado Classics series, The Denver Post takes a weekly look at individuals who made their mark on the Colorado sports landscape and what they are doing now.
You could tell it was high school wrestling season by listening to Stan Lampe.
His normally husky voice became huskier when he was coaching the Fort Morgan High School team.
He probably would have been better off not straining those tender vocal cords. But wrestling is a tough sport, and only tough people are involved.
“It’s the toughest sport in terms of conditioning,” Lampe said. “They do a tremendous amount of weightlifting and running to get into better and better shape. The wrestlers who can do that will pick up the medals. The ones who don’t push themselves that hard won’t.”
And there’s a mental toughness involved that might be second to none.
“I’ve seen a lot of great athletes in football and other sports who have a tough time going out there one-on-one,” Lampe continued. “Wrestling isn’t a sport for everyone.”
Bob Smith, who coached the successful program at Wray High School for 33 years, said there’s a bond among people in the wrestling community.
“It’s a family, a fraternity,” Smith said. “Maybe it’s better to call it a cult.”
Lampe and his wrestling teams became the talk of Fort Morgan and the state as well. They won five consecutive state championships from 1969 through 1973 and two more in 1980 and 1981. Fort Morgan wrestlers went to the champion’s podium 18 times during Lampe’s coaching tenure.
Sam Uhrick and Larry Wagner, the longtime coach at Pueblo East, were his first two state champions. Lance Hochanadel and the Bragg brothers, Bill, Bob and John, were some other stalwarts in the Fort Morgan program. Bill Bragg coaches wrestling at Wasson High School in Colorado Springs. Another of Lampe’s wrestlers, Dave Uhrig, coached Brush to the 3A title Saturday night.
“A lot of people thought we had a bunch of tough farm kids,” Lampe said. “But the majority lived in town. When I think of my best wrestler, I think of Larry Wagner. He battled some big odds as a youngster. All of my wrestlers were great competitors, even those who didn’t win state championships. I think about them all the time.”
Lampe built the wrestling program at Fort Morgan by putting in a group program for youngsters in 1965. He believes that got Fort Morgan’s wrestling tradition going.
“We always went to the summer tournament in Rocky Ford,” Lampe said. “We’d have matches in the steamy Arkansas Valley. We’d sleep in tents or in the basement of a church, whatever was available. We had a lot of laughs together. We all worked awfully hard, but a lot of my wrestlers still stop by to talk about their times.”
When Fort Morgan was ruling the state’s top division in wrestling, it had one of the smallest student enrollments in Class AAA.
“We had a bunch of dedicated wrestlers and great community support,” Lampe said. “Everybody jumped on the bandwagon and we won our share, but not even the Denver Broncos can win the Super Bowl every year.”
Lampe was among a group of coaches who helped put Colorado wrestling on the map as well as help fill college rosters.
There were Smith at Wray, Charlie White at Rocky Ford, Carl Ramunno at Steamboat Springs, Joe Klune at Denver North and Lincoln, John Thompson at Montrose and Mapleton, Bill Byers at Olathe, Pat Patten at Boulder, Carl Cox at Grand Junction, Don Adair at Holly, Wayne Humphrey at Ranum and a host of others.
Lampe also should be credited with starting the program at Wray.
He moved with his family to Wray in 1951 from St. Francis, a hotbed of wrestling in Kansas. However, Wray didn’t have a wrestling program.
“My dad tried to get the high school to put in wrestling, but he didn’t have any success my sophomore and junior years,” Lampe said. “But my senior year, we found some interest in Wray, Holyoke and Yuma. We borrowed some equipment, and it has been going ever since.”
Lampe went on to wrestle at Colorado for coach Ray Jenkins. He remembers meeting with Fum McGraw, who was representing Colorado State University, and John Hancock of Colorado State College, now Northern Colorado.
“I thought I was looking at a giant when I met Fum McGraw,” Lampe said. “John Hancock told me later that I had made a mistake by not going with him because he would have made me a national champion. I won the majority of my matches at CU.”
Lampe retired from coaching in 1986, but keeps his hand in the sport on occasion at Fort Morgan and by joining the Colorado High School Activities Association’s staff for the state tournament.
“I was getting to the point where I was getting burned out and didn’t think I could go back to coaching and do it justice,” Lampe said.
Irv Moss can be reached at 303-954-1296 or imoss@denverpost.com.
