'The heart and soul of Bulldog wrestling:' Bachman retires after 25 years as head coach

By Audrey Posten | Times-Register

Chet Bachman is retiring as head coach of the MFL MarMac wrestling program. 

He’s led the Bulldogs for 25 years, compiling a record of 453-88 and becoming the winningest coach in the history of the Upper Iowa Conference and one of the winningest coaches in the history of the Iowa High School Athletic Association. That span included 14 Upper Iowa Conference championships and 15 conference dual championships, as well as 90 individual conference champs, 65 state qualifiers and 36 state place winners. Of those place winners, 10 finished third or better, two were individual state champions and one was a two-time state champ. MFL MarMac placed fourth as a team at state in 2005 and eighth in the state dual tournament in 2021. Bachman is a five-time District Coach of the Year and was named Class 1A Coach of the Year by the Iowa Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association in 2021.

Bachman’s legacy is more than statistics, though. On a plaque presented to him at last week’s wrestling banquet by co-head coach Travis Johnson, Bachman was described as the “heart and soul of Bulldog wrestling.”

It was an emotional moment for Bachman, following an introduction by long-time wrestling supporter and former MFL MarMac superintendent Dale Crozier.

Crozier called Bachman an expert technician, a life-long learner who’s continually honed his skills and spent hours—day and night—working with athletes and sometimes serving as a proxy parent. He credited Bachman’s efforts to get seventh- and eighth-place wrestlers on the state podium and grow and sanction girls wrestling in Iowa.

“At the end of the day, it’s just wrestling,” Crozier said, “but I was talking to my wife about what I might say and she goes, ‘Wrestling was kind of his ministry, wasn’t it?’ Yeah, I think maybe it was.” 

That “ministry” originated in Bachman’s youth. Smaller in stature, he said wrestling gave him an edge compared to other sports. But even before that, he was interested in coaching.

In a speech at the banquet, Bachman recalled Sunday lunches at his grandmother’s house, where his uncle would talk with him about coaching. One day walking home from football practice, he later met a former teacher and coach fly fishing in his Monona yard.

“I walked over there and he showed me how to fly fish. Then he started taking me all over and we’d talk about coaching and teaching. That had a huge impact on me when I was young,” Bachman said. “My wrestling coach, Doug Martin, was also a big influence on me because I could talk to him about anything.” 

Bachman went to college to become a physical education teacher and planned to coach. Starting his career in the Des Moines area, he surrounded himself with great coaches whose insight he would steal.

“I always was a sponge,” Bachman said. “I never went through life thinking I knew it all.”

He returned to his alma mater in 2000, taking over a wrestling program that hadn’t won a conference championship since the early 1970s. There was just one wrestling mat in the whole school. Bachman remembered how it was rolled up in the small wrestling room, carted down the stairs and laid on the gym floor for a single dual.

“I knew I was going to have to start pretty fresh and work real hard and have a lot of grit. But I had a vision: I was going to do whatever it took to get this program to the top. That was my drive,” Bachman said. “I’ve always had three things I’ve tried to teach: work hard, never give up and believe. If you do those three things, you can do anything.”

Under Bachman’s leadership, MFL MarMac won its first UIC championship in 31 years—and did it again and again. Through his tenure, no team had a losing dual record. 

“As the years went by, we focused on what we needed to do to get better and do whatever it takes to make these kids successful in life,” he said.

Bachman attributed MFL MarMac’s success to a willingness to “do something that was different” from other area programs.

“We tried to make our own path that nobody’s been down. It all starts with the camps and the technicians and the offseason things we did,” he explained. 

Bachman and his assistant coaches sought out unique competition and coaching perspectives in the offseason. Athletic directors over the years allowed him to set his own schedule and seek out unique competition during the season as well. 

Practices became “college level,” as Bachman took a page from wrestling great Cael Sanderson to “get the most out of your practice.” 

“I wanted no downtime, no talking. I didn’t want to sit around,” he shared. “I found a boxing timer and would set it for two minutes, one minute, 30 seconds. When the buzzer stops, you go on to the next thing. That buzzer makes those kids go.”

MFL MarMac coaches also adopted verbiage—some of it code to communicate to their own wrestlers and some to confuse opponents.

“When a coach hollers something, I’ll sometimes holler something and I don’t even know what I’m saying. I’ll just holler something louder so the other kid can’t hear them. That’s a small secret,” Bachman quipped. “One of them.”

Bachman also invested time in the youth and junior high programs, the foundation for the high school level.

“I work with the youth coaches and they work with me. We work together at all three levels in order to be successful. When you can affect your youth in a positive way and make them better wrestlers, that means you’re going to have a better future,” Bachman said.

The most important component, though, was people. Tim Hejhal, Rick Samuelson, Al Reicks, Scott Jarvis, Dan Anderson, Tracy Decker and brother and sister-in-law Mike and Rhonda Bachman were among those Bachman listed, along with current coaches Johnson, Chip McGeough, Collin Stubbs and Mike Meyer. Former wrestlers have returned to the program to coach or assist, to Bachman’s delight.

“When you allow people to be part of it and you work together, you can build things,” Bachman reflected. “If I would have tried to do this by myself, I would have failed. I allowed coaches to come into the room and teach moves maybe I wouldn’t teach. That’s what makes your team good. I’ll never forget how hard it was, but how hard we worked.” 

“What I’ll miss the most is the relationships with the referees and coaches,” he added. “It takes a long time to build that up. It takes a long time to earn respect.”

Bachman was equally appreciative of his family: wife Rachel, daughters Kaylee, Mackenzie and Kennedy and parents Doug and Janice. He thanked the wrestlers he’s coached over the years, as well as their parents.

“Surrounding myself with good people is something I’ve been fortunate enough to do over the years. I thank everybody who’s been influential in my life and helped with the sport of wrestling,” he said.

Bachman also thanked MFL MarMac Community School District for giving him his “dream job” and the opportunity to coach 25 years ago.

Now, he’s ready to go out on a good note and see what else is out there. 

“The older you get, the more you understand there are other things in life that are important too. I want to see what it’s like to not coach,” Bachman said. “It’s taken a lot of time, a lot of life. It catches up to you.”

With Johnson now at the helm of the program, Bachman knows he’s leaving wrestling in good hands. He’s proud of his legacy at MFL MarMac.

“I laid the foundation,” Bachman shared, “but then I allowed other people to come in and help, then worked with those people to make this work. It wasn’t easy all the time, but in the end, I think we have created a very successful program over the years, and that’s something to be proud of.”