Full ‘Nielsen’
New coach takes reins of Clinton wrestling, eyes tough rebuild
New Clinton wrestling Coach Carl Nielsen.
Nielsen was recently named head coach of the Dragons after spending the past few years as the middle school coach in the Clinton youth wrestling program.
“I’ve been the middle school coach and I’ve worked with the littles,” said Nielsen, who replaces Channing McDonald. “I know some of the kids in our program and I’ve coached some of them.”
McDonald resigned after building the program into a competitive one.
Over the past two seasons, Clinton has had postseason medalists on its boys and girls teams.
But last season was a rebuilding year for the Dragons — and that rebuild will continue under Nielsen.
“The first couple of years might be a little tough,” he said. “The big thing for me is to get our wrestlers back in our room, and if I would’ve gotten the job sooner, they would’ve been in our room.”
His first order of business is to recruit athletes.
“I want to meet with our football players, and I’m putting together a slide show for when I meet with them,” Nielsen said. “A lot of football players were wrestlers in high school and even college. Hundreds of NFL players were wrestlers.”
He hopes his pitch resonates with CHS’s football athletes. Last spring, many of the Dragons’ backs and receivers ran track, improving their speed and agility and contributing to the football team’s most-successful season in decades.
“If the track team got the running backs and the wide receivers, then I want the linemen,” Nielsen said. “Wrestling is good for football. The wrestling room is a good place for football players in the winter.
“It helps with strength and leverage,” he said. “I understand that those guys are football players first, and I don’t want to change that.”
Unlike most sports, wrestling is an individual sport within a team concept — and there’s no bench.
“That’s the beauty of it,” Nielsen said. “I don’t pick the roster. The wrestlers have wrestle-offs.”
Nielsen said he encourages athletes not to fear failure.
“Success isn’t always about victory,” he said. “Sometimes, you learn more when you lose. There’s nothing wrong with failure if you learn from it.”
He plans to walk the halls of CHS to rebuild the program, but his ambitions reach beyond high school.
“I want to build up our youth program and our middle school program,” Nielsen said.
Wrestling has always been a part of Nielsen’s life. His father was a wrestling coach, and he’s coached soccer and baseball — but wrestling is his passion.
He’s been involved in the sport since elementary school.
