Chris Caporale, sports@wolfrivermedia.com
Leader Photo by Chris Caporale Menominee Indian High School assistant coach Dale Hodkiewicz, right, watches a match at the Brawl in the Falls on Saturday. Hodkiewicz will be honored by the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Wisconsin Chapter in April with a Lifetime Service Award.
Menominee Indian head wrestling coach Kirk Bahr has known Dale Hodkiewicz for nearly 35 years.
Bahr, who was 10 when Hodkiewicz was his Little League baseball coach, now has the longtime wrestling coach as an assistant on his staff, and the results are
showing with the athletes.
“Dale is a good motivator. Dale can get old-school, and that’s what I kind of like about our wrestling room,” Bahr said. “He brings some of the fundamentals back into it. You don’t need to do funk to win. I think the kids, even if he can be a little bit harsh sometimes, the kids really respect him.”
Hodkiewicz, who coached in Shawano, Bonduel and Menominee Indian, will be inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Wisconsin Chapter on April 9 at the Rock Garen Comfort Suites in Green Bay. He will receive the Lifetime Service Award from the hall of fame.
“I’m in total shock. They took me by surprise,” Hodkiewicz said. “I well up. It’s such an honor. It’s unbelievable.”
Bonduel head coach Chris Rank had Hodkiewicz as an assistant during his time as a wrestler at Bonduel High School. He and Bahr announced the recognition to a crowded gym in Oconto Falls during Saturday’s Brawl in the Falls.
“He’s given his whole life to the sport of wrestling with coaching his own kids, whether it be at an assistant level or at the head coach level for a few years in Shawano,” Rank said. “He just loves the sport of wrestling, and he had success himself as a wrestler at the high school level and college level. It’s a great honor to spread this news of this great accomplishment, and it’s very well deserving of Dale.”
Hodkiewicz, who wrestled at Seymour High School before continuing on at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and three years at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, has done everything in the sport: wrestling, coaching and running various tournaments, including both the WIAA sectional tournament and Central Wisconsin Conference season-ending meet.
The 67-year-old Hodkiewicz, who is president of the Shawano Area Agriculture Society, can’t imagine leaving the wrestling room.
“It wouldn’t bother me if I could hang around for another 10 years,” Hodkiewicz said. “I just love the sport. Physically, I can’t do some of the things I used to do, and that’s understandable. I think I can still reach kids, and that’s No. 1. It always has been.”
He believes wrestling teaches athletes lessons such as discipline, but also builds camaraderie because of the difficult work it takes to be successful in the sport.
“It’s just a huge family. No matter where I go, the communities, it’s wrestling people,” Hodkiewicz said. “Whether I’m out or at the fair or at the races, we kind of get together and end up talking wrestling.”
Tickets for the dinner and banquet at $30 and can be purchased from Bahr or Rank.