The last time Otterbein had a wrestling team was 1974. Brent Rastetter was just two years old. Now 43, Rastetter will be the coach for the returning Otterbein wrestling program.
This summer the athletic department announced that wrestling would be added as the 21st varsity sport at Otterbein. Wrestling had been offered at the university starting in 1961, but was dropped in 1974.
“I saw the press release at the beginning of August,” said Rastetter in reference to when he learned of the job offering. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I sat for a couple of days thinking if I wanted to throw my hat in the ring and decided to.”
Rastetter has spent the past 12 years as the head wrestling coach at Lexington High School, a few miles south of Mansfield, Ohio. In addition, he served as the athletic director and dean of students at the town’s middle school.
While at Lexington, Rastetter accumulated a dual-meet record of 208-34 and in 2010 he was named the Ohio Coach of the Year at the Division II level. 45 of his athletes qualified for states and four took home the state championship. Yet, Rastetter will face the difficulty of trying to recruit students away from more established programs.
“I think that’s the biggest selling point right now is the fact that they can come be a part of something brand new,” said Rastetter. “It’s one of the biggest draws for me that we get to build this from the ground up. I’m not following a coaching legend or a situation where the program is in turmoil and we have to rebuild it.”
Rastetter has spent his entire adult life in coaching. He got his first head coaching job at the age of 20. His path to Otterbein has been filled with many ups and downs yet he doesn’t have to look very far for his biggest inspiration.
Caden Rastetter is his 15-year-old son who, at an early age, was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. It was about that same time Brent found out he had cancer. Through it all, Caden remained his inspiration.
“He is just the toughest little guy I’ve ever been around,” said Rastetter with a smile, when talking about his son. “He goes through all this stuff and still has a big smile on his face. [He] has been the greatest thing in my life as far as teaching me what priorities are.”
The wrestling program will start up after its 41-year absence next winter during the 2016-2017 academic year. Otterbein will be the seventh member of the Ohio Athletic Conference that currently offers the sport. When looking for wrestlers to come out for the first year’s team, Rastetter admits he’ll probably have some help from the football team.
“I’m big on the wrestling-football relationship,” said Rastetter who was also an assistant football coach at Lexington. “I’m definitely going to try to look at working in conjunction with Coach [Tim] Doup. A lot of the techniques between the two sports are the same.”
While Rastetter still might not know the name of every building on campus, he did learn the two most important rules on his first day on the job; don’t change Cardy, and don’t wear purple on campus.
