By Sean Farrell / Record Sports
One wrestler is competing with frostbite after biking to and from school each day.
Most step on the mat with shoes from a team bin of recycled equipment. Many are raised by single mothers or aunts or grandmothers.
Seemingly everyone on the Manchester roster has a story and a challenge to overcome. But the word coach Dave Heitman refrains from using is excuses. The Falcons keep finding ways to win in a place where almost everyone comes in with no wrestling experience.
“Once you touch that mat, all your life problems go away,” senior Khaleel Santiago said. “I found this to be my peace, my therapy. I put my all into it and we’re here now.”
Perhaps no team in North Jersey has written a more unlikely success story than the small Passaic County school that once produced Olympic champion Bruce Baumgartner.
The Falcons (11-2) locked up their first division title in 41 years this month and keep soaring closer to their first winning season in over a decade. A dream ride got even better Wednesday night when Manchester upset Emerson/Park Ridge, 41-34, in the NJIC semifinals, knocking off a blue blood that had won all seven conference playoffs.
Hearing the sweet sound of Frank Sinatra after each home win means a little more after so many lean years. The year before Heitman took over, the Falcons won only one match in 27 tries.
“There’s not a kid in [seven] years that I’ve been here that I didn’t like,” Heitman, 65, said Tuesday. “I’ve been very blessed. I’ve been to the mountaintop with teams and it’s all relative. I think the happiest I’ve ever been was last week.”
Before coming to Manchester, Heitman spent 13 years at Northern Highlands and six at Mahwah. Despite that experience, he was in for a rude awakening when he took the reins in Haledon.
On his first day on the job, he went up to athletic director Rande Roca and didn’t understand why the banner had not been updated since the Reagan Administration. And when told that three of his wrestlers were academically ineligible, Heitman wasn’t sure exactly what that meant.
Now, Heitman has come to see that explaining technique is only one small facet of the job. Two years ago, he had an orphan on the team who ended up in culinary school. One rule in Heitman’s practice room is no cursing.
“We spend a lot of time on their academics,” Heitman said. “Our goal and the reason we’re here is so they have a better life. That’s all. Whether they’re tradesmen or go to college and get a degree, they’re better for it. And wrestling teaches you how to fight through adversity and get back up.”
Turning around the program has taken a full team effort for Heitman, who’s enlisted his son David Heitman and assistants Joe Ickles and Ryan Pro.
On the mat, Manchester is strong in the lower-weights and balanced overall with eight wrestlers with at last 12 wins. The Falcons sent three to the Passaic County podium this year in Hamza Hemaid (third at 113), Roberto Vargas (fourth at 126) and Santiago (fourth at 175).
Santiago has been in touch with college coaches about the possibility of wrestling at the next level.
“I wouldn’t know where to be without wrestling,” Santiago said. “It really changed my life. I went from a point where I grew up playing football and baseball. Before wrestling, I was in a dark spot and I got to a point where I didn’t want to play sports at all. But my coach took me right out of it.”
Before a match this week, Heitman perked up when senior Kishon Hamilton approached him in the stands.
Hamilton is one example of a collaborative effort with football coach Burim Ala, who’s encouraged his athletes to try wrestling. A senior and two-way lineman, Hamilton has slimmed down from 265 to 208 pounds since getting into wrestling last year. The soles on both his shoes are taped up, but Hamilton doesn’t seem to mind his pick from the team bin.
“Honestly, I haven’t retaped these since the beginning of the season,” said Hamilton, whose last-bout pin against Glen Rock clinched first place in the Colonial Division. “I come out looking like this and feel like a king when I walk off.”
“His matches are over too quick,” Santiago chimed in.
In the NJIC championship, No. 20 Manchester will head on the road to face the other returning finalist in No. 12 Hasbrouck Heights on Thursday. Heitman thinks it’s been at least a quarter-century since the Falcons were ranked.
With only three senior starters gone from last year’s 11-12 team, Manchester has been building to this year and this moment. Whatever happens next, the Falcons have put the program back on the map and done it their way.
“We put so much time and effort over the summer,” Santiago said. “All we did was wrestle. We had no choice but to come back and flip the script.”
