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Taylor Made: Classic carries on former Plano coach's legacy
BY Kevin Hageland, khageland@acnpapers.com
Though Taylor Webb no longer coaches Plano Senior wrestling, he is anything but forgotten, as evidenced by the Taylor Webb Classic, which has its sixth incarnation slated for Dec. 10 at Plano.
"Coach Webb did a great job building a program at Plano," said Clay Goodloe, Wildcats head coach. "If you ask anyone in the state I'm sure they would have a story about him."
Plano East head coach Al Koebke was quick to agree with that assertion.
While Koebke saved the stories, he still had plenty to say about Webb.
"I've known Taylor for 27 years and he is one of the finest coaches I have ever seen," Koebke said. "But he is also a great man who was always teaching kids great lessons."
Plano West head coach Shawn Smith shared similar sentiments.
"Taylor got wrestling going before wrestling was big in Texas," he said. "He is an honest, hard-working guy and a good friend of mine; we still play golf together all the time."
The admiration Goodloe, Koebke and Smith have for Webb is a big reason why each of their teams will be competing in his tournament.
"It seems like this tournament keeps getting bigger and bigger each year, so much so that we will probably have to filter out some teams next year," Goodloe said. "It keeps getting better too, and this year is going to be pretty darn tough."
The three Plano ISD schools are among a 15-team field that also includes programs like Austin Akins, Frisco Liberty, Richardson Pearce, McKinney Boyd, Lovejoy, Bishop Lynch and Arlington, which may be the favorite.
"Arlington is absolutely loaded this year," Goodloe said.
But the competition doesn't stop with the Colts.
"We've always enjoyed wrestling in this event. It's a tough little tournament," Koebke said. "But it's good to see tournaments like this where you go and see all this tough competition; that's how you get better."
Goodloe concurred.
"There will be nowhere to hide from the competition," he said. "Sometimes you will look at a tournament's finals and think, 'who are these guys,' but there is going to be great competition here and the finals matches are going to be exciting."
Before getting to the Taylor Webb Classic, the PISD teams have already experienced their share of tough competition.
Plano and West ran into each other two weeks ago at the Pearce Invitational with the Wildcats finishing first and the Wolves, paced by Dean Roudi (138 pounds) and Mark Sender (145), placing second.
"We have a lot of returners," Smith said, "but we are still pretty young."
West's grapplers this season will not include Chase Thomas as the heavyweight broke his leg during football season.
"Losing Chase was tough," Smith said. "But we have to adjust."
Adjustment has been the name of the game for all wrestling programs this season with the change in weight classes. That didn't appear to affect East much last weekend though as the team went 3-2 and finished in sixth place at the Frisco Liberty Thanksgiving Throwdown. The Panthers defeated St. Mark's, Samuell and the host school.
"We actually could have had a shot at the championship, but we lost the tiebreaker," Koebke said. "I was still happy with how we did. The kids have to work some on conditioning, but that is to be expected at this point in the season."
East will be at the Rockwall Tournament next weekend while Plano and West are at Lake Highlands for the Tri-State Meet.
Then on Dec. 10, the Panthers, Wildcats and Wolves will be in the Plano gym for the Taylor Webb Classic with medals going to the top three grapplers in each weight class and trophies to the top three teams. The event begins at 10 a.m. and will run with four mats. The proceeds go to Plano wrestling.
"There is going to be some great wrestling," Goodloe said. "And it's going to be like a reunion out there because we are expecting plenty of familiar faces and a lot of old Plano wrestlers to be in attendance.
"It should be fun."
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