Barton Cougar Wrestling

Congratulations to Head Coach Mike Bammes and his Barton Juco wrestling team for qualifying all 10 of his wrestlers for the National Tournament. I doubt that this has ever happened where a 1st year program qualified every wrestler for Nationals. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Depends on if you are talking just Kansas JUCO's? When Coach Renfro restarted the Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College program after it had been dropped and extinct for 22 long years, the Norsemen qualified all 10 for Nationals and in fact placed all ten in the District qualifying finals with nine champions. BTW, that team went on to win the National title and set a national record for points scored. And yes Coach Bammes has done a great job and in fact the NEO coaching staff voted for Mike to be the West-Central District Coach of the Year for his accomplishment with a first year program. Congrats to Barton and Coach Bammes!

Coach Renfro has done a great job. However, comparing what Barton did this year with what NEO did their first year is like comparing apples to oranges. Many of Coach Renfro's wrestlers in his first year at NEO wrestled for him at Labette and then followed him to NEO so they already had a year of college wrestling under their belt. Coach Bammes had to recruit all his wrestlers and most of them were freshman. He did not have the luxury of already coaching them for a year. Its amazing to me that Coach Bammes was able to pull this off considering all the established programs he was competing against.

Congratulations to Coach Bammes, he had a great season with what he recruited in the first year. He deserves the coach of the year for building a new program in Kansas! But don't start comparing coaches by apple to oranges, Coach Renfro has built his tradition of winning year after year, and hopefully Coach Bammes can do the same under his own name. I wouldn't considerate it a "luxury" to get a freshman to return to this sport as a sophomore unless they are dedicated to the coach. Coach Bammes deserves his credit but quit comparing jwatkins!

Sorry you took it that way Danny. No one is complaining. What is there to complain about. As I said Coach Renfro is an icon in junior college wrestling. I however, will stand by my thought that being able to start a new program and bring many of the athletes you had at your former program who have already been successful on the college level is a great advantage over a coach who is starting with all new athletes, who had never even wrestled on the collegiate level. Coach Renfro has a long track record of success. Coach Bammes has to have many good years like the one he just had to achieve success at the same level of Coach Renfro. Time will tell if he will be able to do that. But, he's off to a good start, one that I don't think anyone has ever done before as a new coach at an all new program.

Your correct I did take it the wrong way, I just don't like the comparing coaches and "who has ever done this before". Coach Bammes got what he worked all season for and congrats to him. Good luck to him in the future!

I like how coach Bammes has a team Facebook page, and a website with rosters etc. He is doing a good job of promoting his team.