Grandville Wrestling History

In 1957, then high school superintendent, Ed Taylor wanted to start the sport of wrestling at Grandville. Rex Roseman (who wrestled a little in high school for Union) volunteered to coach. The first year began as a club with the team focusing on learning the rules, holds and conditioning. We had two exhibition matches that year. In 1958, we had our first organized team.

After the '58 season was over, Roseman went to Taylor and explained to him that he was not a wrestling coach. He had done as much as he could do with the team and stated, ''if you want wrestling to move foreword as a sport at Grandville, you will have to hire a real wrestling coach." With that, Taylor hired a coach out of Indiana University by the name of Jim Ellis. After a couple of years with Ellis, the Dogs were really starting to excel.

But Ellis and his wife missed Indiana and decided to move back home. Prior to leaving, Ellis talked a friend of his from Indiana University into taking over for him at Grandville. His name was Kay Hutsell. What a move that turned out to be. The next year we took fifth in the state. The following year, 1962, we took the class B title with four individual state champions. The rest is history...