POULSBO — The imposter had Clark Hutchman’s thatch of blond hair. He had Clark Hutchman’s uniform. He even had Clark Hutchman’s name.
As the real Hutchman watched in amazement earlier this season, the imposter ducked and weaved and wrestled his way across a television screen in assistant wrestling coach Ron Coppinger’s home.
To a casual fan, the Hutchman on the screen and the Hutchman watching the tape-recorded match would have seemed similar. But to Coppinger and Hutchman, the differences were glaring.
The Hutchman on the television screen was undisciplined and lacked technique; he tried to win his match with strength when skill would have done the job better.
Weeks after the tape had ended, it still made Hutchman shake his head with embarrassment. The video had been taken his sophomore year. The imposter was him.
“When I look at it, it’s funny that I made it to state,” he said. “I had some bad technique then.”
For Hutchman, who will continue his quest for a state title this weekend at regional competition in Tacoma, the tape was proof of his progress as a wrestler and a person.
When he arrived at high school, Hutchman was a physically talented wrestler who struggled to control his temper and think his way through a wrestling match.
But after plenty of coaching and plenty of work, he’s more patient, more disciplined and more dangerous.
Regional competitions will be held this weekend at Henry Foss High School, and the Mat Classic will be held in the Tacoma Dome the weekend of Feb. 21 and 22.
If Hutchman makes it to state, it will be his final exam.
Whether he makes it to the final match or not, Hutchman has acknowledged his debt to coaches Maguire and Coppinger.
Coppinger won the state wrestling championship for South Kitsap in 1978. When he met Hutchman three years ago, the still-wiry Coppinger saw a talented wrestler who needed coaching, and a wrestler who was similar to himself.
“I lost six times in my high-school career. I remember every one of them. I don’t remember the ones I won,” Coppinger said.
Hutchman was the same way; he didn’t take losing well.
“I’d throw fits. I was a brat,” he said. “I thought the world was going to end.”
In one crucial sub-district match, Hutchman grew angry and slammed an opponent’s shoulders to the mat. The opponent was given a point, which turned out to be the margin of victory.
“He was a brawler,” Coppinger said.
In practice, he wasn’t much better; when he couldn’t learn a move, he would ignore it or, worse, complain to the coaches.
The coaches would dab mock tears from their eyes with hand towels.
Then they would force him to work harder.
Hutchman had success his sophomore year, but some of the lessons were harder than others: after a surprising run to the state tournament, his season was ended by Peninsula’s Kyle O’Malley, who handed Hutchman an 11-0 loss.
Again and again, Hutchman — always strong at takedowns — tried to push O’Malley down.
O’Malley would pop up like a spring.
O’Malley was stronger than the sophomore, but it was his technique that made the difference.
“I didn’t do a single thing well,” said Hutchman. “At the end of the match, he wasn’t even tired. I was exhausted.”
Hutchman’s father, Thomas, a former Marine and high-school wrestler, said, “A fast man can beat a strong man. A strong man can beat a fast man. You never know which you’re going to wrestle.”
At the beginning of his sophomore year, Clark Hutchman believed that a strong man could beat anyone. After he lost a few matches, he began to see things differently.
He realized that his anger was hurting, not helping him.
“When you get angry, you want to overpower your opponent, and you lose technique,” he said. “Things don’t flow.”
He spent hours honing moves, practicing his takedowns on the team’s wrestling dummy (who is dubbed “Mr. T”) and working under the watchful eyes of Maguire and Coppinger.
He also spend hours practicing and competing away from North Kitsap High School. He would join Coppinger in the summer to practice freestyle technique with other county wrestlers, and last summer he travelled to a national competition in Oklahoma.
The coaches noticed the difference; they no longer had to keep an eye on Hutchman to make sure he would practice a move accurately.
On the mat, Hutchman learned to fit a move to an opponent’s weaknesses.
His father remembers Clark fine-tuning a move for more than a year and a half before finally debuting it this year; the move took an opponent by surprise and pinned him on his back.
During his junior season, Hutchman’s dream of back-to-back visits to state took a hit when he was diagnosed with pneumonia and had to miss the final leg of the postseason.
The pneumonia may have allowed Hutchman to go unnoticed last year, but after earning a 32-1 record (his loss came by one point), coaches and wrestlers in the Narrows League took note of Clark Hutchman when he reached his senior season.
“He’s their shooting star,” Central Kitsap coach Jim Northcutt said after the Vikings and Cougars met early in the season. “He should go all the way.”
Hutchman claims that learning greater patience made him a better wrestler, but insists that the converse is true: wrestling, he said, has made him more patient.
“I was a hothead. I would get angry easy. Wrestling taught me to control that,” he said.
Earlier this season, one of the coaches began complaining about something one of the wrestlers was or wasn’t doing.
Hutchman was passing by. He reached down, plucked a small hand towel, and dabbed imaginary tears from his face before offering the towel to the coaches.
“I bet he’s been waiting a long time to do that,” said Coppinger.
There’s one change in Hutchman that fewer people have noticed.
A few weeks into this season, he got a tattoo that reads, “Ephesians 6:12.”
It refers to the Bible verse that says, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
Clark Hutchman had the verse tattooed on the left side of his chest. He said he put it there so it would be over his heart.
