ëAn awesome accomplishmentí
Wrestlers remember 1970 dream season
Posted: 1/20/04
By David Heiller
Argus News Editor
The six wrestlers who competed at and won the 1970 state wrestling tournament recalled some of the highlights of that tournament and season for the Caledonia Argus.
ï GREGG MEINERS wrestled 112 at the state tournament. He did not place.
He remembers the huge number of spectators and fans.
Gregg thinks all the athletes who participated made the team better. There would 6-8 kids in a weight class, all with different moves. That paid off once wrestlers got to the state tournament, he said.
The one-class system made it all the more amazing, he said. ìYou wrestled everybody,î he said. ìThatís what was so incredible.î
Gregg thinks referees call too much stalling now. Heíd like to see the refs let them wrestle more.
Gregg is now a paraprofessional at Caledonia High School.
ï Mark Lange won the state title that year at 138, the first wrestler from Caledonia to do so.
Mark remembers being nervous going into the finals. Then coach Larry Thompson pulled one of his patented psychological moves. ìThompson told me to go out and pin the guy,î Mark said. ìThat was our frame of mind back then. That was quite a statement. That was my orders. We usually followed orders back then.î
Having a good attitude was -- and is -- the key, Mark believes. ìIn order to accomplish what we accomplished, the attitude was the best thing we had. If you donít have the right attitude, you wonít accomplish anything.î
He paused, then added:
ìIt was an awesome accomplishment.î
Mark downplayed his personal role, and stated what is probably the Lange Family Motto: You canít do it alone. ìYou donít get where youíre going to unless youíre around good people, period.î
ìIím always the one that gets the danged headline and I donít care for that,î he added.
Mark is a logger and farmer in Crooked Creek township.
ï BOB LANGE who finished third in the state at 145 pounds, said the 1970 team members were close-knit, both on and off the mat. ìThe camaraderie more than anythingî is what he remembers.
He also feels that the people in practice never got enough recognition. ìIt was a gruesome thing just to make it through practice,î he said. He felt that many of the B-squad members would have wrestled on 75 percent of the varsity teams they wrestled.
ìEverybody pushed each other to be better,î he said.
The tournament itself was a blur for Bob, perhaps because he had been there three other times. ìThe whole thing is overwhelming,î he said. ìAs a team, it was a fun ride.î
ìThere will never be another team from Caledonia that wins first place in a one-class system,î
Bob added. It was an observation that several of the other wrestlers made.
Bob is now self-employed as a nutritional consultant and feed salesman in rural Caledonia.
ï RON MEINERS who finished fourth in the tournament at 154, remembers how intense the pressure was heading to the state tournament. The team was not accustomed to that, or to losing. ìAnd we were the kind of kids that wanted to go out and do the job that was expected of you.
ìIt was something that seemed like it was out of reach, yet it was expected of us,î he said.
And seeing wrestlers from big schools like Fridley, Owatonna, and Austin was intimidating, compared to the small town background of the Caledonia kids, Meiners said.
Like Denstad, Meiners remembers the trip back, and the support that they received from their parents and fans.
Meiners is now a soil conservationist for the Root River Soil and Water Conservation District in Caledonia.
ï JIM DENSTAD who finished third at the state tournament at 175, recalls the big caravan that met the team in Spring Grove on the trip home the next day.
ìWe got to Spring Grove and there was all kinds of cars,î he said on January 14. He also remembers the big welcome sign that Darrell Bungeís dad, Reinie, hung from his boom truck, and all the people in the welcome home assembly.
He doesnít recall much of the state tournament itself. ìI guess it was overwhelming,î he said.
He didnít realize at the time what a great experience it was. ìBecause we were winning,î he said. ìEverybody was winning alongside of me.î
Jim said that he thinks about wrestling a lot, even in the way he walks sideways -- like the stance of a good wrestler -- while preparing food at PJs. ìI think ahead of myself, whatís the next step,î he said. ìEverything in my life now has been a rhythm because of wrestling.î
Denstad owns PJís Restaurant in Caledonia.
ï DARRELL BUNGE wrestled heavyweight on the 1970 team and finished fifth on the state tournament.
He said the 22-20 victory over number one ranked Albert Lea at the start of the season set the stage for the rest of the year.
ìThe fact that we won it kind of instilled in us a little more confidence, that maybe we did have something,î Bunge recalled.
ìTo be honest with you, I didnít think I had much of a chance to do anything,î Bunge said about his trip to the state tournament. ìSuddenly I was in the semi-finals.î
He called his loss there a heart-breaker, and he lost his next match before regrouping for a win in the match for fifth place.
Darrell thinks the 1970 team would have had six state champions in todayís four-class system. ìWe had a pretty good dual meet team,î he added, showing a flair for understatement. The team members were close, he said. Sometimes they would go fox hunting during the day, then go to practice that night.
Bunge added tongue-in-cheek that he wasnít the most popular guy on a team filled with kids sweating and spitting to make weight.
ìIíd get on the bus with a couple of sandwiches and a six-pack of Pepsi,î he said.
Bunge went on to play football for the Minnesota Gophers. His teammate at tackle was Dave Simonson, and the middle linebacker was Mike Steidl of Alexandria, who beat Simonson in the finals of the 1970 state tournament.
Bunge, who lives in Hugo, Minnesota, is a lawyer for the Minnesota Petroleum Council in St. Paul.
©The Argus
314 West Lincoln St.
P.O. Box 227
Caledonia, MN 55921-0227
507/724-3475
E-Mail: editor.argus@ecm-inc.com