FORTVILLE — When the Mt. Vernon wrestling team breaks any huddle, one word is emphasized above the rest.
Family.
A hashtag often used by the Marauders program on social media —#family — and a way of life taught to every student-athlete that walks inside the wrestling room at Mt. Vernon High School, head coach Chad Masters has made one simple word the highest of priorities since 2014.
This offseason, Masters decided it was time to live by the word, resigning as the Marauders’ head wrestling coach and shifting to a volunteer assistant role beginning in 2021-22.
“I’ve been thinking about it, especially the last three years. When is the right time?,” Masters said. “I’ve been thinking, man, this has been a really good run. I love it, but then at Christmas I drop off my family at the airport and on Christmas night, I’m sitting in front of the TV by myself getting ready for practice the next day. My son and my daughter will call me, and it’s tough when you’re not with them.”
Masters first joined the Marauders wrestling team as an assistant in 2013 before taking over the program as the head coach in 2014-15. His first season at the helm, Masters remembers how the Marauders couldn’t even fill out a complete 14-person lineup with only eight wrestlers.
Consequently, the team was 10-22 that season.
In the years that followed, the Marauders’ mindset changed quickly and so did the results as Masters amassed a 127-69 coaching record with a pair of Hoosier Heritage Conference team championships and three state qualifiers the past seven seasons.
From 10 wins to 17 over the course of one season led to a program-record 22 victories on three occasions and a 15-6 record in 2020-21 despite multiple setbacks due to COVID-19 protocols and quarantines.
Masters and his assistant coaches redefined the Marauders’ wrestling culture and the progression is on-going, which made the decision to step down harder than expected.
“I got together with the team. I think there were 10 varsity kids there, so I got to tell them, then I went straight to football practice and at the end of football practice I called over anybody who was going to wrestle or had wrestled for me,” Masters said. “I felt like I owed it to them to tell them as well. It was difficult.”
Masters has served as a defensive line coach for the Marauders football team and was an assistant field-event, throwing coach for the boys track and field team this spring.
The 47-year-old Greenfield-Central graduate intends to resume his role on the football team’s coaching staff this fall and track and field is also a possibility, but in order to spend more quality time with his family, he felt it was time to scale back with the wrestling team.
“It was just a lot, and I think it will be good to get a change in the room, too. Let the kids hear somebody else,” Masters said. “I’ve already told whoever the next coach is that I will help and stay on. I know it’s a lot, and I had to do it alone, so I wouldn’t want another coach to have to do that.”
Masters’ decision to step aside will allot him more time to be present for his two children, Chase, 16, and Cadence, 12, and his wife, Kittie.
However, his family will always run much deeper regardless of his coaching title.
The Marauders wrestling program had been Masters’ passion, and his enthusiasm sparked a litany of successes, including the team’s first HHC title in 2018-19. A consecutive HHC title run in 2019-20 also coincided with Mt. Vernon breaking into IndianaMat’s top-25 state rankings as the Marauders went 44-4 over a two-season stretch (2019-2020).
In 2016-17, Mt. Vernon was 22-11. The team was 19-10 in 2017-18 and produced its first IHSAA state qualifier in Chris Wilkerson at 132 pounds since Andrew Quintana placed third at state in 2005-06.
Wilkerson returned to state at 138 in 2018-19, along with his brother Chase at 126, with both placing seventh, respectively. Chris Wilkerson set the program’s career-wins mark upon graduating in 2019-20 with a 147-33 record.
“I never thought we weren’t going to be successful. I knew it was going to be difficult, just being real about it when I first started; Chad Red was at New Pal and they were loaded,” Masters recalled. “I thought, we can’t beat these people, but there are a lot of teams we can beat. And we need to build confidence.”
The team’s development was steadfast and equated to a single-season, program-record of regional qualifiers in 2019 and 38 overall the past three years. The Marauders had 25 semistate qualifiers since 2018-19 and sent a record nine to the New Castle Semistate twice in the last three seasons.
It was a far cry from the Marauders’ and Masters’ humble start seven years prior.
“It’s really difficult when you’re getting your head handed to you every weekend to sell it,” Masters said. “Sure, we’ll get beat 76-3 this weekend, but it’s going to be fun. I remember when we started going to tournaments in Lapel and Shenandoah and winning those tournaments. The kids were like, ‘Holy cow. We’re winning things. We got a trophy.'”
The key was having the right mindset.
“You could feel it building. You always want to build and get better, but now, we’re a program as apposed to when we started and you have eight kids and it’s just brutal,” Masters said. “We weren’t winning anything.”
They never surrendered easily either.
“In the beginning, I would tell the kids to lay on their back at practice, and then I would blow the whistle and tell them to get on the wall because we’re not allowed to be on our back. So they would have to run sprints because they were on their back,” Masters said.
“Then, I would tell them to get on their back and they would refuse to, so because they didn’t listen to coach, they had to run some more. What it did was, all those kids would just go straight to the wall. If I told them to lay on their back, they would go to the wall. They would tell me, ‘Coach, we’re never on our backs.’ Eventually, you don’t have to run them. They got how important it was to never get pinned.”
Their drive to fight through anything secured two sectional runner-up team placements (2019, 2021) and three regional second-place finishes (2019, 2020, 2021) with defending state champion Cathedral feeding into both tournaments.
In 2019, Masters was named the Pendleton Heights Regional coach of the year and in 2021 the Marauders’ assistant coaching staff was recognized at regional.
“When I think back on it, I never doubted it, but to see where it is and where it can potentially go is pretty awesome to be honest,” Masters said. “To really not lose anything in that one two-year stretch when we went 44-4 and won two conference titles, sectional and regional runners-up was a lot of fun. It was an enjoyable ride. The only people beating us were state ranked.”
Masters was also named the HHC coach of the year once during his team’s back-to-back championship seasons.
“To hear your name, when I won conference coach of the year, I can’t lie, it was pretty cool because it validated it, I guess. I felt like, yeah, I’m doing something right,” Masters said. “Not that I wanted that type of recognition, it just sort of validated it.
“Thinking about the coaches that have been in the HHC. With Chad Red (at New Palestine), the national wins leader in Rex Peckinpaugh (at New Castle), Dave Cloud has been coaching for 40 years (at Pendleton Heights), Josh (Holden) has coached state champs (at Greenfield) and Trent McCormick (at Yorktown) all those years. It was a big accomplishment.”
Masters felt the same way as Mt. Vernon junior Sierra Pienkowski placed runner-up at 138 this past season during the IHSGW state finals at Hamilton Heights High School for her third state medal in her career.
Once the foundation was set, however, the Marauders thrived — as a family.
“I think it was 2015, we told the kids, we’re going to be the best in-shape team in the state. So, we ran a lot and we worked hard, and as you got better, you could push the kids harder because you’re better and they start to expect things,” Masters said. “They expect to win.”
