METTLE WRESTLING STORY

I (Cole Kelley) started my professional experience in the sport of wrestling as an official. I was mentored as an official by my high school wrestling coach and Hall of Fame Wrestling official Darold Henry. Officiating help get me my start in coaching. I was officiating an Orem Dual meet when then Head Coach Robert Steele called a time out and called me to the table. Both Coach Steele and Coach Beal (Orem High Assistant) came to the table and I was nervous that I had blown a call. Instead Coach Steele asked, "What is your name?"
"Cole Kelley" I replied.
"I told you." Coach Beal said as he punched Coach Steele in the arm.
"Is that it?" I asked in surprise.
"Yes. That's it." They said together.
At the end of the dual meet they asked what I was doing with my life and I explained that I was working on a degree in English Education and planned to be a teacher and a coach. Coach Beal turned to Coach Steele and sarcastically stated, "There's my replacement." They invited me to come work out with the team and I started my relationship with Orem High School.

I viewed it as sarcasm, but he was for real. I replaced Dave Beal at Orem High School and worked for two years as an assistant coach. I worked at the school as a Tracker while I finished my English Education Degree. Instead of student teaching, I was offered an internship at Orem High School. When I received the position, Coach Steele stepped down as the Head Wrestling Coach and I was named Head Wrestling Coach at Orem High School. Coach Steele and Coach Beal had built an outstanding program. I felt the pressure of keeping a good program on top.

I grew up in a solid wrestling program at Pleasant Grove High School and wrestled for Coach Darold Henry. I had watched from youth the key to building a good program was establishing good feeder programs. At this time Timpanogos High School had recently opened and Kelly Sanderson and I started TigerWolf wrestling club. We did not know if the half breed animal existed, but it helped draw some recognition to both programs. Soon Kelly and I grew to know Layne Billings at Mt. View High School and we changed to Orem Grapplers. Our program included several kids and each program offered a Jr. High program. The Orem Grapplers was primarily for elementary age wrestlers. As the Orem Grapplers grew, we were getting kids from Provo and Pleasant Grove that joined our efforts to grow young wrestlers. It is fun to watch some of the early Grapplers now advance into high school. The Savio brothers at Lehi, Korbin Levin at Pleasant Grove, and the Carter brothers at Maple Mountain were some of the first Tigerwolf and Grapplers in our program.

As the club grew some coaches were hesitant to send kids to Orem Grapplers because they thought it was for Orem kids. This is where Rocky Mountain Wrestling got started. I had been running the Rocky Mountain Rumble for a couple of years and jumped off the Rocky Mountain theme to call the club Rocky Mountain Wrestling.

The feeder program was a great program for all of the Orem Schools. Orem, Mt. View and Timpanogos at the time were finishing among the top 5 in the state year in and year out. I was the head coach at Orem High School for 8 years. During those eight years we had:

1- National Champion
3- All-Americans
14- State Champions

 I started a masters program and decided that it was time to step down as the head wrestling coach at Orem High School. I continued to run Rocky Mountain Wrestling kids club. At the end of my masters program I was hired at American Fork High School. I was conflicted because I lived in Orem and had boys of my own that were coming through the program and worked at American Fork High School. I decided that Iwould build in both locations. We continued Rocky Mountain Wrestling and expanded with kids from Provo to Lehi.

In 2008, Throwdown Elite Training Center in Orem, UT called and asked if I would be willing to meet with them about the future of their business. The meeting was a success and ultimately their vision was to include wrestling as a part of the programs that they offered to the public. They did not want to try to recreate the programs and wanted to build on the success of our program. We felt it was a win win and we started calling our club Throwdown Elite Wrestling Club. Throwdown closed their doors, I did not want Throwdown coporate to come tell me I was in violation of using the name Throwdown, a guy out of Colorado was threatening legal action for my use of Rocky Mountain Wrestling and it was time to look for a new name for the kids club.

I was looking for a synonym of toughness that we could call the club. I went to dictionary.com and searched toughness. The results produced Mettle (click to see definition). I liked the defintion and we adopted Mettle Wrestling.

No matter the name, we have been successful in building one of the best clubs in the country and look forward growing Mettle Wrestling in quality and quantity.

Cole Kelley

09-10 Club Achievements:

Salt Lake Slam Bantam Team Champions
Salt Lake Slam Intermediate Team Champions
09-10 Utah State Elementary School State Champions

10-11 Club Achievements:

Utah Youth Super State Tournament Pre-K 1st Place
Utah Youth Super State Tournament 1st-2nd Grades 1st Place
Utah Youth Super State Tournament 3rd-4th Grades 2nd Place
Utah Youth Super State Tournament Overall 3rd Place
Northwest Bigfoot Battle Spokane, WA 2nd Place Intermediate Division
Salt Lake Slam- Tour of America 3rd Place Intermediate Division
Georgia Grind- 3rd Place Intermediate Division
Dominate in the Dells, Wisconsin 2nd Place Bantam Division

Cameron Hunsaker- Folkstyle All-American and only wrestler in the United States to win all four USA Wrestling Tour of America events.