Doing it for the love of the kids

MEDICAL LAKE - The two men are diametric opposites.

The first is a one-armed, self-described liberal non-conformist hippy running coach, the other a retired Air Force chief master sergeant, traditionalist conservative business owner and national hall of fame wrestling coach.

In this age of extreme social and political polarity, it would seem unlikely that Medical Lake High School head cross-country and track coach Gene Blankenship and Mat Maulers Wrestling Club coach Wayne Terry would have anything in common.

Yet they do, and that one commonality has proved a receipt for lasting success for both them and their protégés.

That one thing is love.

More specifically, their love for the athletes they coach in both the technical details of their respective sports, but also in life itself.

"Unrelenting dedication and his complete surrender of his free time," is how Cardinal cross country runner Jeremiah Windle described Blankenship, who, at 77 years old, still runs up to four miles a day. "He tells us we're his kids and we're very important to him."

His athletes simply call him Gene.

"He's always trying to spoil us and make us feel like, welcome in cross country and make us feel loved," runner Kyler Castro said.

An after school conditioning class is packed with athletes in the high school's spin-bike room as Blankenship patiently begins to talk over the usual teenage pandemonium.

His white normally longish and somewhat untamed hair has been cut respectfully short due to a bet in which he allows his runners to take turns cutting his locks if they place at the state championships, which they do regularly each year.

"He tells us he loves us a lot," Cardinal speedster Quintin Collins said.

Terry, who works each winter with kids ages 5 – 14 at the Mat Mauler's Wrestling Club in Medical Lake, uses love as the foundation for everything he does.

"When they know you love them they will run through a brick wall for you," he said.

Assistant Medical Lake cross country coach Lisa Henry, whose son, Ben, wrestles for Medical Lake High School, said Terry spends time at practice talking about various American leaders and values, and "the respect we should have for our flag and the people who lead us," she said.

And Terry always lets his young wrestlers know how he feels at the end of every wrestling practice.

It comes from the heart.

"He will get tears in his eyes," Henry said. "Because he cares so deeply and he wants these boys knowing they are loved and they can do it, whatever it is."

A paraeducators at the high school, Henry isn't afraid to invoke Terry's name, or even threaten to call him if she is has issues with one of his former wrestlers.

"Come on man, what would coach Wayne say?" she said she might say, and the kids settle down because they don't want to disappoint him.

While Terry is known for the stories he tells at practice, Blankenship is all about lifting his kids up. He will bring his runners together and tell them, "you guys have the potential to be really great, and I know you can do this," Henry said.

Blankenship uses his own experiences to illustrate the potential he sees in his kids, she said.

The only time Blankenship prays, Henry said, is at the state cross-country championships, when he prays that his kids "can run a race they can be proud of."

She said the kids know that both coaches would do anything for them - and they for them.

Several years ago, according to Henry, Blankenship tried to quit as head coach. When his athletes found out they started an email campaign to convince him to stay.

"When they had to sit down and think about it, they realized everything he had done for them," Henry said.

Likewise, when Terry's father passed away the cemetery was packed with his Mat Mauler wrestlers past and present - several generations worth - at the interment. Some even skipped school to support their coach.

For Terry, his expression of love took root early on when he noticed several of his Mat Mauler kids came from "tough backgrounds."

"I knew that those kids were not told that they were loved," he said, and realized they especially needed to hear an expression of love from someone they looked up to - like a wrestling coach.

He's been doing so since the early beginnings of Mat Maulers.

"If no one has told you today they love you, I want you to know that coach Wayne loves you," he says at the end of each practice. "And I tell them I'm glad that you're a part of my life and I'm glad I get to be a part of yours."

Championship wrestler Ethan Davis was coached by Terry beginning at age five.

"He treats everyone like family," Davis, now a high school junior said, adding that even today Terry still coaches him. "The lessons you learn through him ... are like no other. You couldn't imagine a better person to look up to."

For Blankenship, who has no children of his own, running and being a running coach is his "reason for existence."

"The only thing that matters is the kids," he said.

For both coaches it's all about expressing and demonstrating love to their athletes.

"It's the most powerful force in the world," Terry said.

Lee Hughes can be reached at lee@cheneyfreepress.com.