Photo courtesy of Jenny Cooreman Wabasso coach Cole Cooreman, center, has stepped down as Wabasso head wrestling coach and will move with his family to Iowa this weekend.

WABASSO — It’s not easy to fill the shoes of a Hall of Fame wrestling coach like the late Gary Hindt, but Cole Cooreman had a pretty reliable source telling him to not worry about that when he took over coaching the Wabasso varsity wrestling program in 2017, that source being the Hall of Famer himself.

After taking over for Hindt in 2017 and nine dedicated years of coaching the Rabbits varsity and youth wrestling programs with passion and energy, Cooreman has stepped down as he and his family will move to Des Moines, Iowa, this weekend.

Cooreman said the decision to leave Wabasso and his position at Cooreman Contracting, Inc. took a lot of thought and conversations with his family, but it was a decision he ultimately chose to do as he will now work for Road Machinery & Supplies Co.

“I tried to find some different avenues in Southwest Minnesota that was going to let me [change my career path], and unfortunately I looked and nothing was available for what I was wanting to do, so I had to start looking at different areas and different things,” Cooreman said. “And Wabasso is a very special place to me and we’ve built something amazing here and the last thing I wanted to do was move somewhere within the state and have my kids competing against those kids and be their competition, so I decided if I was going to move, I was going to move somewhere far to get my kids and family to where we could still be fans of Wabasso and didn’t have to be fans and compete with them, so that’s when we started looking down in Iowa.”

Cooreman said Road Machinery made him an offer to work for them in Iowa during the winter but worked with him to let him finish his coaching in Wabasso. He was then able to begin work with the company on March 9, commuting to Savage, Minnesota, for training and getting up to speed.

When Hindt, a 49-year Wabasso head wrestling coach and Minnesota Wrestling Coaches Hall of Famer, stepped down as head coach of the Rabbits following the 2016-17 season, he was gracious to Cooreman, who had nerves of taking over for the long-time coach and doing the program justice.

Hindt didn’t let him worry long about it.

“I was fortunate to meet Gary before when I was in high school, when I was competing against his teams and always had great respect for him and the whole Wabasso program and the for the people in Wabasso,” Cooreman said. “Being over here myself and taking over and being that next guy was great. One thing that was big with Gary when I came over … he was here 49 years, he’s Hall of Fame both state and national levels. Huge, huge shoes to try to step in and try to fill being a 27-year-old head coach for the first time.

“And I met with Gary and I mentioned that, ‘Gary, you left some pretty big shoes here for me to fill.’ I remember him saying, ‘You don’t have shoes to fill. If you do anything besides be yourself … then you’re going to be doing a disservice to the kids in this community. They picked you for a reason, just be yourself.'”

Cooreman was himself, an energetic, passionate coach that worked hard to continue developing young wrestlers at all levels. Coaching was something Cooreman wanted to do since high school, taking on a bit of a coaching role with some other Tracy wrestlers as juniors and seniors.

Cooreman said his senior year was extra special for him and further pushed him towards getting into coaching after graduating.

“We ended up taking second in our section that year, lost a tight one to Adrian, but from that team, we had six seniors and five of the six have gone on to coach, so it’s been something that we’ve always kind of gravitated to,” Cooreman said.

Cooreman, a 2006 Tracy grad, moved to Wabasso nine years ago when he took the Wabasso coaching job and continued to work for Cooreman Contracting until recently accepting his new position. His first day with Road Machinery in Iowa will be this coming Monday.

Cooreman, who had 117 career varsity wins as head coach at Wabasso, said he hopes the wrestlers he coached in Wabasso know how much he cared and wanted them to succeed in more areas than just on the mat.

“For me, personally, I hope that they take away that I always came with a lot of energy and a lot of passion and somebody that was always in their corner and willing to go and do whatever for them,” Cooreman said. “Go help them in school or help with something out of school for them or try to line up summer jobs and things like that, just always there for them to be a support. I always want them to know that I’m in their corner, not just the wrestling corner but in their life corner. That’s something that I hope that they feel that as I leave, that I was truly there for them and truly cared about them.”