Good Story - parts of this story are one of the reasons the KCWF was started.
Mike Denney building national title contender at Maryville
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By Craig Sesker USA Wrestling | Dec. 15, 2014, 4:54 p.m. (ET)
The president of the university was there.
So was the vice president. And the athletic director.
And two members of the St. Louis Sports Commission.
They were all in attendance to watch Mike Denney’s third-year Maryville University wrestling team make a significant impact at the 2014 NCAA Division II Championships in Cleveland.
Denney, a Hall of Famer who led Nebraska-Omaha to seven national championships, brought a strong Maryville team to Cleveland this past March with seven NCAA qualifiers.
But the momentum Maryville built at its NCAA regional came to a screeching halt. The first Saints wrestler fell short in their opening match. And so did the second.
The losses kept piling up as Maryville was 0-6 in a rough first session before young heavyweight Donnell Walker earned a one-point victory just before the break.
The Saints were mired in 30th place with just two points.
“After the first session, our administrators were all in this little huddle talking,” Denney said. “I joked with my coaches that they were all changing their flights to go home early.”
The administrators stuck around and were delighted with what they saw over the next three sessions.
Maryville stormed back with an improbable performance that saw them land five wrestlers on the All-American podium. The Saints went 9-2 in the second session.
Maryville also racked up its share of bonus points and earned the third-place team trophy on the second and final day of the tournament. It was the first NCAA tournament trophy that the Saints had won in any sport.
Not bad considering its highest individual finishers – Walker and Nick Burghardt – each placed fourth.
“I was really proud of our guys,” Denney said. “We had some tough first-round draws, but our guys are competitors and they battled back. They showed some grit.”
Maryville started this season ranked No. 1 nationally and has stayed there entering the holiday break. The Saints won a team title this past weekend at the 26-team Midwest Classic in Indianapolis.
“It was an outstanding performance by our team,” Denney said. “We were missing two starters, but our guys really stepped up in a very tough tournament.”
Six Maryville wrestlers are ranked in the top six in the country. Two-time All-American Keenan Hagerty is No. 2 at 149 with Burghardt (184), Walker (heavyweight) and fellow All-American Zeb Wahle (174) also each ranked second. Wahle’s older brothers, Blu and Henry, were NCAA qualifiers under Denney at Nebraska-Omaha.
Returning Maryville All-American Dimitri Willis is No. 3 at 165 and Greg Hegarty is No. 8 at 157.
Walker, who made the NCAA semifinals as a freshman heavyweight, is an amazing success story for Maryville. He was a state high school champion wrestler in Missouri who also was an all-state football player and a state track and field champion in the shot put.
“Donnell was officially declared homeless in high school, and a family took him in,” Denney said. “This is our version of the movie, ‘The Blind Side.’ Donnell has come in here and done a great job for us. He’s doing well in school and is wrestling at a high level. He would’ve never gone to college if it wasn’t for athletics. It’s a great story.”
Denney is in his 36th season as a collegiate head coach, the first 32 spent at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Denney’s powerful UNO teams won six national titles in his final eight seasons with the Mavericks, earning national three-peats from 2004-06 and 2009-11.
But just hours after winning the 2011 NCAA team title in Kearney, Neb., Denney received a late-night phone call at his hotel following his team’s post-meet celebration.
UNO athletic director Trev Alberts informed Denney by phone that the school was moving to the NCAA Division I level and the school was dropping wrestling.
Just days after the stunning move, Denney received a phone call from Maryville vice president Jeff Miller.
Miller wanted Denney to lead the new wrestling program at Maryville.
“My first recruit had to be my wife, Bonnie,” Denney said. “We didn’t even honestly know where Maryville University was when Jeff Miller called me. We had lived in Omaha for 42 years, so it was obviously a big change moving to St. Louis. Bonnie’s been amazing, she’s so supportive.
“We felt called to do this and God called us to do it. I still have a passion to do this. I love working with these young men, and wrestling is a great vehicle for me to teach and build and make a difference. These kids motivate and inspire me every day. We have some great young men here.”
Denney said the administration at Maryville has been a blessing.
“After they ran us out of town up there, Maryville opened their arms and embraced us,” Denney said. “The administration here has been amazing. They want us to do well, and they’ve been very supportive as we’ve tried to build our program here.”
The Saints broke through with a superb third season under Denney after experiencing their share of ups and downs in the first two seasons.
Denney’s first season in St. Louis was highlighted by true freshman Hagerty finishing second at NCAAs in Pueblo, Colo. The team finished 21st.
Year two was highlighted by former UNO All-American Matt Baker winning Maryville’s first national title. The Saints improved to 11th in the NCAA team standings.
“It was a delightful challenge in those early days,” Denney said. “We basically had to start over. We didn’t win a dual our first year and that was tough. Two of my coaches – (UNO national champions) Mario Morgan and Aaron Denson – lost a total of three duals their entire college careers.”
Denney has assembled a strong coaching staff with James Reynolds, Morgan, Baker and George Ivanov among the other assistants.
Ivanov, a two-time All-American at UNO and an NCAA Division I qualifier at Boise State after UNO dropped wrestling, is a top international wrestler in freestyle.
Ivanov, a native of Bulgaria, won the Dave Schultz Memorial International earlier this year in Colorado Springs.
Ivanov is hoping to represent Bulgaria at the 2015 World Championships in Las Vegas. He and Morgan work in the admissions department at Maryville.
“George brings so much to our room,” Denney said. “He is still competing at a very high level, and he is able to train with our guys. He is a born coach. The guys love him. He has a great personality and really connects with our guys. He is always working with someone and helping them. He’s been great.”
Denney’s team faces a tough challenge in its regional this season with five of the nation’s top 10 ranked teams in their NCAA qualifier.
Denney’s teams, like they did in Omaha, also continue to excel in the classroom. Maryville had a team grade-point average over 3.0 in the 2013-14 school year. Four Saints earned Academic All-American honors this past season.
Maryville resumes competition after the holidays with its next big event being the Division II National Duals.
“We know we’re getting better – we’re still pretty young,” Denney said. “All of our All-Americans last season were freshmen and sophomores. We’ve got a good bunch of guys who have been part of the building process.”
Denney texted his team earlier this week and congratulated them for their big win in Indianapolis.
Then he followed with another message:
“The dogged pursuit of quality and excellence. Keep at it.”
Maryville also will host the 2015 NCAA Division II Championships at the Chaifetz Arena in St. Louis in March. The NCAA Division I Championships are being hosted a week later about a mile away at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis.
The only other time the Division I and Division II nationals were held in the same city was in 2010 in Omaha. Denney’s UNO team won the DII title that year.
The Chaifetz Arena is a 10,000-seat arena that opened in 2008 on the campus of Saint Louis University.
“It’s a beautiful arena,” Denney said. “This will be the nicest facility Division II nationals has ever been in. I’m so excited about hosting this, but the whole key to hosting this is we’ve got to have a good team.”
Denney said a number of his past wrestlers from Nebraska-Omaha are planning a trip to St. Louis for the NCAA Division II tournament in March.
“It means so much to me that those guys we coached (in Omaha) are still supporting me and what we’re doing now at Maryville,” Denney said. “We have so much loyalty with the guys we’ve coached.”
Denney, who turns 68 in March, has showed no signs of slowing down.
“I really want to make sure we have this program at Maryville going strong,” he said. “I haven’t even really thought about (retirement). I’m really enjoying what I’m doing right now. I still have a passion for this.”
