For the last 23 school years at Windsor, the wrestling program has been led by Kevin Stoffey. Even after he retired from teaching approximately eight years ago, he still continued to coach. Following Ryan Yarnell’s undefeated state title season, Stoffey finally decided to call it quits.  

The program will now be led by one of Stoffey’s former assistants and wrestlers, Ryan Bollinger.

Bollinger’s background should make it a seamless transition.

Bollinger was in the military from 2005-2010. He was in the Air Force and when he did not enlist for the second time, he went to Marine Mechanics School in Orlando, Florida, for four and a half years. He then decided to come back to Windsor.

“My original plan was to graduate from high school, then go to college and become a coach here at Windsor, preferably here because I had gone here,” Bollinger said.

Bollinger did not originally plan to be the head coach of wrestling. He has been coaching football for three years, as well as coaching wrestling for four years. Even as head wrestling coach, he still continues to be an assistant coach for football.

“Originally, I wanted to become head coach of football, and then wrestling kind of took over. That was the plan, though, just to coach both of them and whichever one I became the head coach, it would be perfect,” Bollinger said.

When he was a student at Windsor, Bollinger played football, wrestled and he even threw shot put and discus for two years on the track team.

Since Bollinger has been an assistant for the past four years, the returning wrestlers know what to expect out of their new head coach. The Owls return several key wrestlers this season, including: Grant Pauli, Seif Elkhashab, Chris Butts, Brandon Ruegge and several others.

Wrestlers such as senior Brandon Ruegge are happy for their new coach.

“Coach Bollinger is a great guy and I have been looking forward to him being the head coach,” said Ruegge.