By JASON GALLESKE
Stan Weigel's impact to the Boscobel wrestling program can be measured in many ways such as individual state championships and dual meet wins.
He also has made tough wrestlers and associates emotional.
Weigel was inducted to the Boscobel Wrestling Hall of Fame Friday evening prior to the Bulldogs dual meet with Cuba City/Southwestern. Numerous Boscobel alumni were in attendance.
"They're the reason I was in it," Weigel said. "It's good to see them come back."
One of his most decorated grapplers, Steve Wacker, the Bulldogs first state champion, who won it with a 31-0 record at 155 pounds in 1985, choked up several times when introducing his coach.
"It really hit me as I was doing it," Wacker said. "The time he puts in to the program, the kids and how the kids buy in and believe in him. It proved successful throughout the state of Wisconsin and if you look around at the other schools you will see that many of the coaches are from Boscobel."
Wacker said his coach played a big impact on his perfect run towards the state crown.
"Individually, whether or not he knows or not he helped a lot," Wacker said. "Mental toughness was a thing that they pushed a lot. Stan had us all ready to wrestle, always. It's hard to explain a relationship that you have with a coach that believes that you can actually conquer something. State titles just don't come and he made it seem like it's reachable. It's an attainable goal and we just need to do it."
Weigel coached the high school program from 1980 until 2009 and still coaches the youth programs ammassed over 200 meet wins and four state champions. His former assistant and current head coach Jeff Novinska also was teary-eyed when describing his former mentor.
He's very deserving as a coach here," Novinska said. "He has earned that right to be in there, I'm proud to be a part of it."
Novinska also noted that Weigel's wife Sue is a big reason why Stan is the way he is.
"Although Stan's name is going on the award, Sue's a big part of this too," Novinska said. "She has been there doing stuff from day 1 with him. Every good coach has to have a good wife, if they're not single or don't become single. She's a big part of this. She's done a lot of the work behind the scenes that allowed things to work for him."
Weigel, who was introduced to wrestling when he was a freshman at Platteville, eventually wrestled at UW-Platteville and took his first wrestling job at Monticello in 1977. He stayed there until 1979 where he moved to Boscobel and his legacy began.
"I'm not in it for the rewards," Weigel said. "I just wanted everybody to have a better base than what I worked from."
And for people like Wacker, the base led to honors on the mat and most importantly a lifetime impact.
"Stan's a gentle giant," Wacker said. "When I mean giant, he has a giant impact on you. He is a gentleman on and off the mat and in life in general, if there's something negative, he'll find a positive and that's amazing to me. He takes something and he'll turn it into a positive light and he makes you thinks that way. The glass is always half-full for Stan, not half-empty."