Wrestling coach links classroom, gym

Most wrestling coaches try to recruit great athletes who can be molded into wrestlers.

Not so for Spoto High School's Emanuel Burch, who uses a different approach.

He starts with students who have a lean body and proven academic self-discipline and molds them into wrestlers.

Unlike most wrestling coaches, Burch is a science teacher. That means most of his initial exposure to students is academic rather than athletic. But it also helps him target his prospects. Respect for authority and the ability to follow instructions are necessary attributes.

"Students doing well in subjects like physics and earth sciences have already developed academic disciplines, and that can be transformed into athletic disciplines necessary to succeed in wrestling," he said. "Strength and skills can be developed."

Burch, a second-team all-state football player and successful wrestler at Tampa's Chamberlain High, returned to his alma mater to teach and help coach Jeff Duncan with the Chiefs' wrestling program.

In 2002, he transferred to the new Middleton High and started the wrestling program.

"Because of the type of youngster I recruited, we had few discipline problems and none that were not corrected quickly," Burch said. "I required a minimum 3.0 grade-point average and most had much higher, so academic eligibility was not a problem."

He brought in committed assistant coaches and supportive parents. By 2006, his team had six individual district champions and the school's first district team championship.

Some of the successful athletes he recruited at Middleton included 2007 state champion Ruben Perez, two wrestlers — Moses McCray and LeRoy Minley — who placed in this year's state tournament, and state qualifiers Derrell Williams, Andre Coleman and Ricardo Albaladejo.

He transferred last year to Spoto High, and has started building a successful program for the Spartans. One of the toughest aspects, he said, is teaching complicated wrestling techniques to athletes who have never been on a mat before.

After building a house near Ruskin, the commute to Middleton got to be a drag. Still, leaving Middleton wasn't easy, Burch said, because he had so many friends at the school and his mother lived close by.

"Spoto was closer to my wife's job and our new home, so I transferred schools," he said.

In his first year at Spoto, he had just four wrestlers at the end of the season. With his year-round club team, the Spartan-Riverview Wrestling Club, area kids are learning the sport. He finished the 2008 season with 22 wrestlers at Spoto.

Wilnnet DeJesus, Charles Bare, Richard Santa Cruz, Carson Dodd, Brannon Centeno, Donshay Inmon and Rafael Rivera all qualified for the regional tournament this season. The club team's new season started this month.

"I believe the hardest thing I have ever accomplished in high school athletics is coaching wrestling," Burch said. "I believe that if I can become successful in this sport, I can become successful at anything I put my mind to. I am truly blessed."