Bradley Martens grew up in the heyday of Madill wrestling.
He saw state championship teams in 1992 and 1993 andwatchedarareOklahoma four-time state individual champion in Steve Elkins. Martens starred for the Wildcats himself as a threetime state mat qualifier and two-time state placer before graduating in 2003.
He returned to his alma mater for five years as a wrestling assistant for highly- successful coach Jim Love before leaving to work full time at the family business Red River Grain.
When the Wildcats had an opening with the departure of Austin Pettigrew to join his wife at Pauls Valley, the Madill administration didn’t have to look far for a head wrestling coach that fits the mold to a T.
Martens has been hired to head up the blossoming program that has a record number of participation with the fledgling girls program addition.
“Wrestling got drilled to me at an early age and I have just always been drawn to the mat,”Martenscommented.“I have always had a passion for coaching. I have followed the programfromtheoutsideand helped out training some of the Madill wrestlers in little league that are now in junior high and high school.
“We’ve got the numbers and talent in the program. We just need to continue training to get to the next level. We’ve already started with some freestyle practicing and we are going to open thewrestlingroomevenmore in July. Immediately after football season we’ll be in there all the time.”
The 2003 Madill High graduate wrestled a couple of years at the University of Oklahoma before joining the marine corps for nine years. That’s when Martens found his way back to the Wildcats as a part-time assistant.
Now he will return in full capacity, also helping with thefootballprogramwherehe will coach outside linebackers and wide receivers beginning this fall.
One of the biggest differences this time around for Martens will be the addition of a fledgling girls program that has grown by leaps and bounds over the past several years.
“Girls wrestling didn’t exist when I was coaching before,” he said. “From what I understand, these girls are very enthusiastic and ready to go. It’s a budding program. We have over 40 junior high kids and over half of them are girls.
“Having some great assistants is going to help a lot and I think we have that. They are going to help us build all the way up through the ranks. With higher numbers and more competitions, we need as many in the room as possible.”
That staff for Martens will include Ryan Bracken, who was a two-time state champion as a wrestler at Blanchard, as well as two-time former Madill state placer Griffin Williams. Joining them will be Kylor Culbreath.
While next year’s schedule will likely resemble this past season, Martens has ambition to return the Wildcats to out-of-state competitions at times like when he was a Madill High grappler.
“Ideally, we want to take them to a competition level at or above where they have been,” he stated. “We want to wrestle as tough of competition as we can in order to makeusastoughaspossible.”