Deb Etzen didn’t build the machine that is the Ponderosa wrestling program, but she and husband Jerry invested years watching their three sons sweat and toil to help make it the best Colorado has ever seen.
Winners of the past seven Class 5A team titles, the Mustangs have risen to dominance through the dedication of coaches, parents and athletes, most of whom got their start with youth “feeder” programs.
Success breeds success, and no one wants to let down now.
“Bringing those kids up from the younger ages, with that drive of wanting to be a varsity wrestler, that’s been a big part of the success,” Deb Etzen said.
Deb’s son Adam was on the 1998 title-winning team. Andy graduated as a three-time champion. Alex was second-best in the state in 2005. Deb Etzen still hasn’t left the program, though her kids have, which might say all you need to know about the bond the program holds in Parker.
“It’s gone beyond my wildest dreams,” said Dan McNellis, who laid the foundation for the youth system in the late 1980s. Since the program’s rise 20 years ago, the Mustangs have won nine team titles and fielded 29 individual champions.
“I remember seeing the bigger guys wrestle, and I always wanted to be just like them,” said Ponderosa senior 145-pounder Jake Snider, who will try to become the school’s first four-time state champion — and 16th in state history — next month.
As for Deb Etzen, she hasn’t missed a match even though her youngest son graduated five years ago. She’s on the booster club board and takes photographs of each wrestler to put in a scrapbook.
“They’re all my friends,” Etzen said of the Ponderosa wrestling family.
Talk to anyone about Ponderosa’s program, and they soon mention Tim Ottmann, who became athletic director and wrestling coach in 1990. At the time, the best description of the wrestling program was probably “doormat.” Arriving from Burges High School in El Paso, where he coached wrestling, Ottmann soon met up with McNellis, who had organized a youth program nicknamed the Rattlers to keep his sons involved.
Ottmann met with McNellis, and two other fathers of wrestlers, in a brainstorming session to plan what it would take to build a powerhouse program.
“That night, that meeting,” Ottmann said, “was kind of the beginning of what we’re all about.”
Added McNellis, “We shared a lot of dreams, and that’s where it started.”
Starting success
Ottmann soon began the process of toughening up his wrestlers, getting them to understand what it took to win. He sought out tips from rival programs. He recalls Brighton coaching legend Tom Cortez being especially gracious, sharing advice on training after his team pummeled the Mustangs 57-7 in a dual.
As a successful businessman, McNellis chose to put his own resources into expanding the feeder program, getting young wrestlers to top tournaments, even organizing a summer tour in Germany. Things caught fire soon after.
By 1992, John Sandoval became Ponderosa’s first state placewinner, finishing third. Two seasons later, the Mustangs won their first league wrestling title — they’ve won every one since — and crowned their first state champion, McNellis’ oldest son, Chris.
“Once he won state, I think the rest of us saw: ‘Wow. This can be done,’ ” said Corey McNellis, Chris’ younger brother, an eventual two-time state champion himself and now the Mustangs’ head coach.
In 1995, Ponderosa placed second at state. The Mustangs broke through with their first of consecutive team titles in 1997. Their current streak of seven in a row broke North’s state record of six (1944-49).
“He is a one-of-a-kind person,” Corey McNellis said of Ottmann, who handed over the reins after the 2008 season. “He combines the best qualities of a head coach.”
Feeding the need
When Jeffrey Estrada, 31, moved to Colorado from Illinois on a job transfer, he was drawn to Ponderosa because of its reputation as a wrestling power and what he calls his need to “stay in touch” with the sport. Back home, Estrada ran a youth program that won consecutive state dual-meet championships and produced 17 individual champions in five years.
Estrada, a roofer and a full-time student, is the new cog in the Ponderosa machine, taking over the feeder program in September 2008. He was brought on to oversee the youth, build the numbers and keep the kids in step with a sport that is always evolving.
“Kids 6 and 8 years old are doing things people 30 years ago didn’t know,” Estrada said, “and things I didn’t learn until college.”
Estrada renamed the program the “Parker Sons of Thunder,” a biblical reference to the apostles James and John, who asked Jesus if they should call down fire from heaven to punish a Samaritan village.
The 92 kids in the Sons of Thunder make it one of the state’s largest youth programs, perhaps the largest that is designed to feed directly into one high school. The elite wrestlers, which include Estrada’s 8-year-old daughter Jerzie, spend 10 months a year learning techniques that will become innate.
The kids compete against each other in practice, with each other in tournaments, and travel throughout the country. By extension, the Ponderosa colors become their pride. Some get to wrestle in exhibition matches at school before varsity duals as a chance to visualize their dream.
The future state champions start young, often at age 5 or 6. For Deb Etzen, her involvement began when her son Andy brought home a wrestling flier from kindergarten. Before she knew it, summers were filled with cross-country trips to tournaments as her sons grew up.
And, there were several trips to downtown Denver to watch her boys win medals at state.
“We just kind of got pulled right into that,” she said.
Ponderosa powerhouse
Ponderosa has built the top prep wrestling program in Colorado. A look at its success, by the numbers, since 1994, when it had its first state champion:
29 — individual state championships by 18 wrestlers
16 — consecutive league titles, from 1994 to present
9 — Class 5A team titles
8 — two-time state champions
7 — consecutive team titles, from 2003 to present
3 — three-time state champions
