No one has had more of an impact on the persona that Hollister
is a
”
wrestling town
”
than local instructor John Kiesewetter.
With two Central Coast Section wrestling titles in the past three years and a few more CCS titles under its belt, Hollister High has built a reputation in the state of California as a hotbed for good wrestlers. No one has had more of an impact on the persona that Hollister is a “wrestling town” than local instructor John Kiesewetter.
For the past 12 years, Kiesewetter has headed the junior varsity Balers for varsity head coach Matt Olejnik. Kiesewetter, who has coached wrestling at some level or another for the past 30 years, will call it a day after then end of his JV season, which culminates on Feb. 8 at the Freedom Tournament in Freedom.
“I’ll be able to do more surf fishing,” said Kiesewetter, who turned 53 last Oct. 15. “Plus, my daughter, Johni, plays sports and I’ll be able to watch her when I want to. And no more getting up at 4 a.m. for Saturday wrestling tournaments. I won’t miss that, but I’ll miss being with the kids.”
The kids will miss him.
“Coach Kiesewetter is an awesome coach,” said junior Adrian Ponce. “He’s helped me with a lot of the small details.”
“He’s a great guy,” added sophomore Jake Mahan. “He makes wrestling fun and not just painful.”
One of the top wrestlers on the Balers is junior Octavio Lucatero, a 135-pounder. Kiesewetter coached Lucatero for three years at Margeruite Maze School.
“Coach turned me on to the sport of wrestling,” said Lucatero. “He’s a great coach, definitely.”
Olejnik gives ample credit to Kiesewetter for developing many of Olejnik’s wrestlers as they have reached the varsity level.
“He gets the kids started with the Razorback Wrestling Club,” said Olejnik. “We’ll miss him. He’s done a lot to build the foundation around here. I’m sure he’ll be helping out on certain occasions.”
“He’s a heck of a coach,” stated Baler Athletic Director Dave Tari. “He does a great job with the young wrestlers in regards to the technical aspects of wrestling. He’s animated on the mat and makes it challenging for them, more than anything. He treats wrestlers equally and fairly.”
Born in Joisy
John Joseph Kiesewetter was born in 1949 the Ironbound section of Newark, New Jersey. It was a rough neck of the woods, to say the least.
“My father taught me how to fistfight at the age of four,” said Kiesewetter. “As a youth, we’d get into mischief, mainly breaking up abandoned houses. One time we were grabbed by the police, which shook us up. The good news was that one of them said they were building a PAL boxing gym and they invited us to come down.”
Kiesewetter and his buddies signed up and he boxed in seventh and eighth great before moving on to other sports at South Plainfield High, which is in a suburb of Newark.
At South Plainfield, Kiesewetter played football, wrestling and baseball. He excelled at wrestling as a 141 to 148 pounder, placing 3rd in the region his junior year and fourth in the region as a senior. After graduating in 1968, he motored west.
“It was the greatest move I ever made,” said Kiesewetter. “We had a friend at Stanford University and he said the junior colleges were so much cheaper out here. Back east, tuition for J.C.’s was more than universities out here. It was a culture shock. We didn’t know if walnuts were grown on a tree or on the ground until we came out here.”
Kiesewetter attended Gavilan College for two years and wrestled well enough to earn a scholarship to San Diego State. At SDS, he wrestled to a third place in the Pacific Coast Athletic Association at 150 pounds. He eventually got his teaching credential in San Diego and began coaching wrestling at Santana High School.
In the mid-’70’s, Kiesewetter ventured to Morgan Hill and sub-taught and coached wrestling at Live Oak High. He came to Hollister to teach at Sacred Heart School.
From 1976-80, Kiesewetter was the head wrestling coach for Hollister High, where he won three of four Mission Trail Athletic League titles.
“We had some good wrestlers, like Jerry Glass, Sammy Ramirez and Bob Frusetta. Glass was sixth at CCS, but we never did much as a team there.”
In the late ’70’s and early ’80’s, Kiesewetter was responsible for bringing in international wrestling teams from Japan, Russia and even a Greco-Roman Olympic Team. Another time, a combined Hollister-Gilroy team wrestled a team from Venezuela.
“They’d toss us like we were cookies,” said Kiesewetter. “But it was great. We’d pack the old gym.”
Pig hunter
In 1980, Kiesewetter started the Razorback Wrestling Club, which is open to boys and girls of all ages.
“We used to do a lot of pig hunting,” said Kiesewetter. “Why not?”
It was with the Razorback Wrestling Club where Kiesewetter has coached many a Baler wrestler, such as varsity assistant David Salcedo.
“I watched David wrestle since he was five years-old,” said Kiesewetter. “That’s what makes it all worthwhile, to see guys come through the system. I’ve had guys I’ve coached grow up to by me a beer.”
Other outstanding wrestlers Kiesewetter taught when they were young were Adrian and Ricardo Velasquez, Donnie Rider, Ben Flores and Jessie Pino.
And there were many more, including his three daughters – Johni, 16, Alexandria (Alex), 21, and Toni, 25. All three girls were members of the Razorback Wrestling Club. Alex was a state champ, winning a girls tournament in Concord. Toni ended up being more of a fan, doing a lot of the paperwork during Baler matches. But, she could wrestle, too.
“I wanted to just go and watch one of his tournaments when I was six years-old,” said Toni. “He told me I had to beat four guys before he would take me. I beat the four guys so I go to go.”
For John’s wife, Joann, a librarian at Sunnyslope School in Hollister, his retirement from the coaching ranks is “bittersweet”.
“I’ll miss watching him coach because he’s a great coach,” said Joann. “But I won’t miss getting up at 4:30 a.m. on Saturdays and making him breakfast.”
Not completely retired
For the past 18 years, Kiesewetter has taught fifth grade at R.O. Hardin Elementary School after spending seven years as the Hollister Parks and Recreation Director. He has seven more years until he retires from teaching.
Which gives him seven more years of clearing the desks to the outside in his classroom and making room for wrestling for his energetic fifth graders. Kiesewetter describes his most popular indoor game, “Steal the Bacon”.
“You play it on your knees,” said Kiesewetter. “There’s a team on one side and one on the other. I call out a number for each side and they have to crawl out to grab the ‘bacon’. The one who doesn’t get there first can either grab the other person or grab the ‘bacon’. It gets real good when I call out two students from each side. Then you have one grabbing the other one and so on and others protecting each other.”
Call it an off-campus class in Razorback Wrestling for professor Kiesewetter.
