Former city councilman hits the mats as an assistant wrestling
coach at Gilroy High School
He was a probation officer from 1967 to 2002, a city council
member from 1992 to 2005, and this season he’s an assistant
wrestling coach at Gilroy High School.
Most people who attend a Mustangs wrestling match this year will
recognize Charles Morales as the guy who helped shaped the
direction of Gilroy as a city council member the last 12 years. But
Morales’ biggest accomplishment may be his desire to help at-risk
and Latino youth to get off the streets and out of gangs and onto a
wrestling mat where they have a positive outlet. Those are the
reasons behind his founding of the Gilroy Hawks wrestling club in
1969.
Former city councilman hits the mats as an assistant wrestling coach at Gilroy High School
He was a probation officer from 1967 to 2002, a city council member from 1992 to 2005, and this season he’s an assistant wrestling coach at Gilroy High School.
Most people who attend a Mustangs wrestling match this year will recognize Charles Morales as the guy who helped shaped the direction of Gilroy as a city council member the last 12 years. But Morales’ biggest accomplishment may be his desire to help at-risk and Latino youth to get off the streets and out of gangs and onto a wrestling mat where they have a positive outlet. Those are the reasons behind his founding of the Gilroy Hawks wrestling club in 1969.
Over the years, almost every wrestler from Gilroy who has competed at the high school level got his start as a youngster in the Hawks’ program.
During those same years, only one of those at-risk kids that participated in the program has been institutionalized, which shows how successful Morales’ intervention has proved to be off the mat as well.
“We taught the kids citizenship, sportsmanship, respect for their parents and even hygiene,” Morales said.
Although he left the Hawks in the early 1980s, it was Morales’ groundwork that paved the way for the successes that Gilroy High enjoys today.
This year the Mustangs are vying for their fourth Central Coast Section wrestling title in a row and everyone can credit some of that success to the seed that Morales planted in the late ’60s.
That’s why after losing his bid for a fourth term on the Gilroy City Council, Morales has decided to come full circle and do what he enjoys most – helping area youth by helping out with the high-school wrestling team.
“I’m excited about it. I always focus on kids and youth,” said Morales, who has four grandchildren at Gilroy High and is the vice president of the Parents’ Club there. “I’ve always tried to contribute to youngsters that had problems.”
Morales’ desire to help youth began almost as soon as he received his Gilroy High diploma back in 1965.
In 1967 during his second year at Gavilan College, Morales started a 35-year career with the Santa Clara County probation department. Morales was a supervising probation officer at the William F. James Boys Ranch in Morgan Hill where he counseled and worked with hundreds of kids over the years.
He formed the Hawks as an outlet to help kids in similar situations get off the streets and into the gym. Most of them came from broken homes and were tempted with thoughts of gang life.
“We tried to teach the individual that the alternative was not paying off,” said Morales, who has a master’s degree in education from the University of San Francisco and another one in psychology from the University of Santa Cruz. “At the time, a lot of Latinos were being recruited by groups. The gang colors back then were mostly black.”
Morales chose gold and green colors for the Hawks in order to model his program after NCAA wrestling powerhouse California Polytechnic Institute-San Luis Obispo.
“The Brownell Tigers (middle school) were green and white and we wanted to be slightly different from them. (Since many of the kids in the Hawks were students at Brownell.)”
In the gym, his students could take out their anxieties and aggression on the mat.
“I love to see the kids learn about body movements and the ability to control their bodies,” said Morales, who also wrestled during his four years at Gilroy High. “Wrestling strengthens the body and creates self-esteem that individuals can take pride in. They realize that they can do it, and they get confidence and respect and learn to control their energies and anger.”
Morales proved that the wrestling outlet would alter a child’s direction from a life of potential crime to one of hope and promise.
“Only one kid who competed on the Hawks team in 37 years has been institutionalized,” said Morales of the impressive statistics. “And the average kids competed for five to six years in the program.”
Prior to the Hawks program, the only opportunity for kids in the area to wrestle was at the middle school and high school level.
Morales program offered opportunity for any kid ranging in age from 5 to 18 to compete.
To give his program instant credibility Morales had it sanctioned by the Amateur Athletic Union and the team was officially called the Gilroy Amateur Athletic Union Wrestling Hawks.
With his ability to round up funding and his connections with the probation department, the program became and instant success.
Within the first few years Morales had 170 kids signed up for his program where he worked as founder, director and coach.
“You name it. I did everything back then,” Morales said. “I remember the mothers had to hand-sew all of the uniforms back then. I created it though as an alternative to delinquency.”
Before long, Morales’ organization received nonprofit status and became sanctioned by the state.
“As we grew we were able to buy gear and medical kids,” Morales said.
As time went on the Hawks grew in stature, gaining national recognition for their abilities on the mat.
Morales was also instrumental in brining Jr. Olympic and Olympic teams from other countries to compete against the Hawks.
Over the years he had teams from Canada, Japan, Mexico, Venezuela, New Zealand, Austria and Germany compete against the team from a city of some 20,000 people at the time.
“We might have had one wrestler win one match out of all the times we competed,” Morales said. “I knew we wouldn’t win but it was in the spirit of competing internationally.”
Although the Hawks weren’t successful on a global level, the Hawks did win a state and national title in 1977.
That championship and Morales’ abilities as a coach and statesman for the game drew national interest.
In 1977 Morales was selected to coach the United States Junior Olympic team and the national amateur athletic union team. The Junior Olympic squad was broken down into two teams. The first team, which Morales coached, competed in Asia. And the second team was sent to Europe to compete.
From those two teams the country’s first Olympic team was to be formed for the 1980 Olympics. Morales would have been one of the top coaches on that team, but the dream never came to fruition when the U.S. boycotted the Olympics that year, which were held in Russia during the height of the Cold War.
When Morales left the Hawks, the program was taken over by Zeke Contreras and then Everett Mar before Gilroy High head coach Armando Gonzalez took the program over in the late 1990s, which he still coaches today in the off season.
Morales remembers coaching athletes of his that went up against Gonzalez, who competed for the San Jose Olympic Wrestling Club, as youngsters.
“Now I guess it’s like the parent learning from the youngster now,” said Morales, who has the utmost respect for what Gonzalez has done at Gilroy High. “I’m learning a lot of new things from him. The sport is a lot different now. I’m impressed with today’s athlete. I’m old school. Today the sport is almost scientific.”
Today the Hawks club has between 75 and 100 kids. The numbers went down in the mid-1970s as other sister clubs like the Toro Wrestling Club in Morgan Hill and the Razorbacks in Hollister got underway.
One of seven brothers in a family of 11 children, Morales became interested in the sport at an early age. In high school, he wrestled his freshman year in the 126-pound class and would add weight each year before wrestling at 145 pounds as a senior.
“I was just an average wrestler,” Morales said. “I did well in freshman novice tournaments but a few of my brothers competed in state tournaments.”
Morales grew up on the outskirts of the city limits on Balsa Road, which also helped with his athleticism.
“We were five miles from Gilroy High School,” said Morales, whose family lived on a walnut farm that they managed. “We all became runners because none of us had any other way to get home. My brother Jesse (San Benito High cross country coach) converted the concept.”
As the league season is about to start next month, Morales uses his own recent loss in the city council elections to teach the wrestlers at Gilroy High about overcoming adversity.
“It shows that winning isn’t everything. And it shows that we need to learn from our weaknesses to create strengths,” Morales said. “What creates a champion is how people handle defeat.”
