Former BCL state wrestling champion honors his coaches (2024)

The 1983 Class 1A 145-pound IHSAA wrestling champion from Beaman-Conrad-Liscomb, who now lives in Elkhart, returned to the area last Wednesday to visit longtime BCL coach Bruce Altenhein.

Schwienebart presented Altenhein with a framed arrangement of Craig’s medals acquired under Altenhein’s tutelage at BCL, along with a newspaper clipping from Schwienebart’s championship victory in “The Barn” at Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Des Moines over 40 years ago.

“That’s all of our victories, together,” Schwienebart said to Altenhein as he presented the gift.

What followed was a two-hour conversation in Altenhein’s comfy home tucked away in rural Conrad.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO - Craig Schwienebart, right, is pictured with BCL wrestling coach Ken Hoff during a visit to Hoff’s home on Wednesday. Schwienebart said he considers Hoff’s contributions equally important to his success on the wrestling mat, winning three high school state medals that included a state title in 1983.

It was a conversation about wrestling, of course, as Craig and Bruce bounced story after story off one another, back and forth; but their spouses, Julie Schwienebart and Carol Altenhein, also had the men musing about the life lessons that brought both of them to where they are today.

“I think a lot of people forget where they came from and forget the people that helped them get to where they got to,” Schwienebart said. “It becomes like family for me, I know Bruce and [Bruce’s wife] Carol better than I know some of my own family.”

Altenhein, 85, who coached wrestling and taught math and computer science for more than three decades in Conrad, is battling cancer and currently on a dialysis treatment while also managing his diabetes.

“I’m really fortunate to be alive, to be very honest,” Altenhein said.

As Altenhein looks back on his life, he still remembers no shortage of stories from his time on the wrestling mats, whether with Schwienebart or the countless other wrestlers that came into the wrestling room over the decades.

He said whenever he asks himself if he ever affected anybody’s life, all he has to remember is Randy Mast.

“Randy was just a real common farm boy. … What kind of wrestler was Randy? Average. But he had a heart of gold,” Altenhein recalled, his voice catching in his throat as tears welled in his eyes. “His senior year, he got on varsity, and that year in the conference tournament, he finished third. He got a medal. It was the only medal he ever got.”

Mast joined the United States Army in 1969 and served in Vietnam before he was killed on June 5, 1970 by an enemy booby trap. He was 21.

Altenhein remembered being told at Mast’s celebration of life that in addition to his dog tags, Mast came home to Grundy County with only one thing in his pocket — the third-place medal from the conference tournament.

That is but one example of the lasting impact of Bruce Altenhein.

“He’d talk to you as a coach just like we’re talking today almost 50 years later,” Schwienebart said. “He never got too mad, too upset. He would communicate with you, help you through a situation.”

Schwienebart was third as a freshman, second as a junior and ended his high school career as state champion.

Altenhein remembers seeing Schwienebart as an eighth-grader who had recently moved from Red Oak.

“It didn’t take long to know that we’d have something special here,” Altenhein said. “But some of the things I remember most are when his mother told me that when he got up in the morning, he’d always ask his mother if there’s something he could do for her before he went to school, or went to the swimming pool during the summer. How many young boys do that for their mothers?”

To that end, Schwienebart feels that Altenhein was one of several positive figures in his formative years.

“We had good role models growing up,” Schwienebart said. “Bruce would be out there in the summertime detasseling and I’d always hear stories about how he’d go out in the morning and not get home until after dark, working 16-18 hour days and you don’t realize it until you get older and do it yourself that he was in his 40s doing all that while we were 16-17 years old. … I think the kids worked hard because the parents and adults worked hard and they expected that from the kids because they worked hard growing up.”

Schwienebart is one of three state champions in BCL history, along with Ted Gunderson (1971) and Rick Juchems (1974). He has two sons, Royce, 29, and Royal, 23, and lives in Elkhart with his wife, Julie.