By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

OREGON CITY, Ore.–  The dominance of the Clackamas Community College Wrestling team has hit a milestone.

Saturday’s 36-11 victory over Highline College gave the Cougars their 90^th Dual win in the past 10 years.

“It’s a really cool milestone and it’s bigger than me,” said Clackamas Head Coach Josh Rhoden.  “It’s 10 years of kids committing to what we’ve thought this could look like from the beginning and getting to that place is fantastic.

“You plan, you dream about getting your program to a place where you can do something like that averaging nine wins a year, its incredible.”

The winning ways started in 2007, Rhoden’s first year as head coach and featured a National Title in 2011 and a 12-2 record in 2012 as they finished no worse than eighth in the NJCAA National Tournament under Rhoden.

And if all works out according to plan, Clackamas could crack 100 dual wins in 10 years.

“It would be crazy,” said Rhoden.  “It’s not something that anyone thought would be possible 10 years ago then but here we are.

“Guys from 2007 to current that trusted in us with their athletic careers and their academic careers and now seeing some of those guys coaching in college, competition on the international stage.”

For Haszell West, the Cougs 184-pound wrestler, he did a presentation on the history of the Clackamas Community College recently and knows how important his contributions is to the history of the program.

“it’s nice to be a part of that history, to do my share,” said West.  “The guy’s I’ve watched come up, since I was a kid wrestling these guys are like superheroes to me.

“They came to Clackamas and did great things,” added West with the coaches contribution.  “Won Nationals Titles so I’m proud to be a part of that.”

Rhoden knows now, in 2015, that kids expect great things out of the program.  Both on the mat and in the classroom as the program moves into the second ten years under “The Rhoden Way”.

“The cool thing is (that) it’s sort of built in now a little bit in the sense that kids expect that if they come here that they’ll be a part of a winner,” he said.  “And it’s not on the mat, it’s academically, it’s socially that they take care of themselves.”

Kids stay out of trouble, make sure everything is in line so they can graduate in two years.  A standard that kids, parents and people can see that they can come to the program and be very successful as a student-athlete.

The program still has athlete’s performing at the highest levels of wrestling.  Either in coaching, in the NCAA, NAIA or Internationally, Rhoden knows how humbling this experience has been for him personally.

“It’s been an humbling experience,” Rhoden said.  “And when you see stuff like that it’s making it more interesting to see that it’s really happening.”

For West, he knows how important it is for him and his teammates need to do listen to Coach Rhoden and do what they tell them if they want to keep this winning tradition going into the future.

“(We) just keep listening to our coaches are doing.  What Coach Rhoden is asking us what to do and everything will work itself out,” said West.