Welcome to PINchester: McGuire looks to build Shenandoah wrestling program through hard work
WINCHESTER, Va. (BVM) — When Tim McGuire accepted the job to become Shenandoah University’s first-ever head wrestling coach, he knew that he was going to face a difficult challenge. Not only did the new coach have to travel halfway across the country from his assistant wrestling coach position at the University of Chicago to get to Winchester, but he would also have to build the program from the ground up as it begins its inaugural season in 2020. The university announced the addition of its 22nd intercollegiate athletics program this past September and by October they tabbed McGuire as the guy to move the team forward.
“Most coaches would see (starting a new program) as an extraordinary opportunity,” McGuire said. “I can even go back to when I’m in college and sitting with friends and talking about how we would want to build a program if we could. … Just knowing we could put these ideas to reality was very cool.”
🚨🚨 BREAKING 🚨🚨 @SUHornets adds men's wrestling 🔴🔵
🔗 https://t.co/o3l9Jw4nfC #ComingSoon #Winter2020 #WelcomeToPINchester@USAWrestling @smcollegewrestl @ncaawrestling
— Shenandoah Wrestling (@SUHornetsWRES) September 23, 2019
The decision to create the program came down to a number of various factors including the popularity of the sport in the region as well as the university’s James R. Wilkins Jr. Athletics & Events Center, which will house a number of the program’s events along with other wrestling events in the future. The team will also be given a locker room in the Shingleton Gymnasium on campus where the team will be able to practice when the new mats come in.
McGuire, who was openly exploring head coaching options throughout the country, found the fit at Shenandoah to be the right one. Not only would it allow for him to build the entire program the way he wanted, but it would also provide a strong support staff in a wrestling hotbed.
“As soon as I stepped on campus and was in Winchester, it surprised me how much I absolutely loved it and knew this is where I wanted to build a program,” McGuire said. “As a university they are fully supportive of wrestling and everything we want to build. … The school is really excited and pumped about wrestling, the big influences in the town they love wrestling so you can really feel that when you come on.”
Creating a program for a university is no small task, especially for a coach who is in his first year of being the head man, but if McGuire has anything, it’s experience on the mat both as a collegiate wrestler and as a coach. McGuire, a Chicagoland native, was a member of Marquette University’s Division I-wrestling program from 1998-2001 where he wrestled in the 141-pound weight class.
McGuire credits his former Marquette head coach Jim Schmitz as well as his Golden Eagles teammates for helping mold the coach he is today. From his experience at Marquette, McGuire learned not only how a coach should run a top program, but also the technical aspects of the sport he hadn’t seen in his earlier years.
“Jim Schmitz built a program that really allowed all of us to grow the best that we can,” McGuire said. “Just seeing on the best way to be a head coach … seeing how he managed things is something now as a head coach I will look back on. … As a wrestler, my technical knowledge increased 1,000 times being underneath him.”
McGuire’s coaching experience is extensive as well as he has coached at all levels of the sport from youth programs he founded in Chicago and Milwaukee to being the national coach for Barbados since 2015. His collegiate experience is perhaps McGuire’s most impressive. McGuire first entered the college ranks as an associate head coach and recruiting coordinator for Wilber Wright College from 2010 to 2012 before joining the University of Chicago staff in 2013. McGuire served as the head assistant coach at University of Chicago for six years and was a part of a staff that was awarded the University Athletics Association Coaching Staff of the Year in both 2018 and 2019. During his tenure with the school, the Maroons consistently finished in the NCAA Division III top 25 and helped to coach four All-Americans, five national qualifiers and five Academic All-Americans.
One of the main lessons McGuire learned from his time at the University of Chicago was the importance of technique. Though it may not be his most valuable lesson, McGuire said the way the program preached and practiced technique, sometimes making it even more important than getting practice matches, was one thing he would want to instill in his new program at Shenandoah.
“At University of Chicago we focused a little bit more on the hows and whys of technique and not just pounding and grinding it out,” McGuire said. “We wouldn’t just show a move, we would start to break it down. … Our technique became very precise to where we could beat better wrestlers with it.”
Now, McGuire is charged with bringing a similar level of success to the Hornets. McGuire is looking to build that mostly through his passion for the sport and his program’s members. Instead of being a coach, McGuire sees himself more as a father who will give all his time and energy to the kids and program he loves.
“I don’t necessarily always have to strive to build this family type of relationship in my programs, it happens very naturally,” McGuire said. “I don’t physically have kids. They are my family. They are my kids. There isn’t any aspect of my life I would ever keep from them. … Really what I would be offering my kids is everything I have.”
With that idea of family and dedicated commitment to the program, McGuire believes that it will naturally grow his wrestlers as individuals as well as a team. He feels that level of love really pushes athletes to the next level.
“That seems to drive and motivate kids more than hitting them with the whip,” McGuire said. “I really feel you can get that commitment and that kind of love for what you’re doing and that enables kids to run through walls.”
McGuire looks to build his program with a group of wrestlers who are, as he calls them, an “OW” or an “obsessed wrestler.” These wrestlers will be extremely committed to the program, but will also work hard and strive to compete and get better every day.
“They will be extremely hardworking and very, very competitive,” McGuire said. “I will be developing a very competitive individual who is constantly looking to be their best at everything that they’re doing. … Someone that in their free time, they want to wrestle. They’re upset with something, they want to wrestle. Somebody that is wrestling obsessed is No. 1 that I would be looking for.”
Welcome to our first Wrestling Coach Tim McGuire! Hornet wrestling is expected to debut in fall 2020. https://t.co/y9PjQofB3J pic.twitter.com/ApfAfRQma9
— ShenandoahU (@ShenandoahU) October 24, 2019
This commitment won’t just be in the classroom, however, McGuire wants all of his team members to be dedicated to the school in all aspects from the classroom to campus life to community service. As McGuire puts it, he is preparing students for the next 40 years of their lives, not just the next four.
“People that graduate from our program are going to have that attitude where they are striving to become 1% better in every aspect of their life,” McGuire said. “They want to be 1% better each day as a husband, as a father, as an employer or as an employee, within their community.”
McGuire knows creating a winning culture is not easy. It takes the right people all working towards the same goal while also maintaining discipline and effort throughout a grueling schedule that balances education and athletics. At the end of the day, McGuire doesn’t want just successful teams, but a successful culture as a foundation for the future.
“We’re not coming in and building for the next four years, we have a win now attitude when we’re coming in here,” McGuire said. “Right away we’re expecting nothing less than being the hardest-working team in every level. I want us lifting harder than anyone else, running harder than anyone else, practicing our technique harder than everyone else, putting extra time in the classroom more than everyone else, getting involved in the campus more than anyone else. Constantly pushing to be the best in every aspect there is really how we’re going to develop the winning culture here.”
Though the team is still in its infancy, recently receiving lockers for the locker room and travel bags for their wrestlers, it has already established a strong first-season schedule. Shenandoah is scheduled to be a member of the Southeast Wrestling Conference and will have 13 regular-season events and matches for its inaugural season, most taking place in Virginia and nearby Pennsylvania. The team will be facing an uphill battle, however, as all but one event will be away from the campus. The program’s first-ever home match is scheduled for Jan. 7 when the Hornets go against another newly-founded program, Emory & Henry, in the Wilkins Center.
McGuire was able to quickly establish himself in the area as well, hosting a youth clinic for a Mason Dixon Wrestling League event at Tuscarora High School in Leesburg, Va. Although he has only been in charge of the program for a handful of months, McGuire has been hot on the recruiting trail, specifically in the region from states like Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia.
The team is projected to have 23 members for its inaugural season. Many of the athletes will come from Virginia, including two from just one school, Skyline High School in Front Royal, Va., where wrestler Morgan Robinson became the first signee in program history after signing his letter of intent on Feb. 20 and fellow Hawks wrestler Wyatt Spiker committed in May. Both boys placed during the Class 3 state championships with Robinson finishing third and Spiker finishing sixth. McGuire thinks his program will have national impact in recruiting as well, using his Midwestern ties to recruit some other members from the region and using the transfer pool to help tie the rest of the team together.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B8zeVWdBW5y/
With time, it’s likely that the program will gain even more local and national talent as it continues to grow over the next few years. With some solid commitments and a dedicated staff of about 10 high-caliber assistant coaches from across the country backing him, McGuire has already been able to create excitement for Shenandoah wrestling moving forward.
“We have high expectations,” McGuire said. “I would like to finish in the top three in the region. There are times that I can look and say if everything went right we can even win our region. I would like to be a top 20 team. That’s pretty high goals for a first-year program so I don’t know if that’s going to happen. But as I’m looking at the lineup, I love the team we have coming in and I don’t see a hole. … It is possible for every single kid on our team to qualify for nationals.”
While the newest coach has high aspirations for his team on the mat, McGuire knows those may be more difficult to achieve than some of the intangible goals he has set for the team. He wants the program to show their success within the university community as a good group of people.
“I want us to be noticed and recognized throughout the university,” McGuire said. “I want us to consistently stand out as being hardworking, kind individuals throughout our whole campus. With that, it makes winning more fun. Around campus, it’s not necessarily what happens on the mat that I want talked about, I want them being talked about as the finest gentlemen walking around our campus.”
The program’s social media accounts have dubbed the unit PINchester. In time, McGuire will be able to bring plenty of Hornets wins to the mats of PINchester as the team grows under his watchful eye.
