BHS alum works hard to give back to others, wants to instill good values for life.
Bainbridge wrestling assistant coach Matt Pedersen has known head coach Dan Pippinger ever since Pedersen was a high school senior, and Pippinger was an eighth grader just learning about wrestling back in 1989.
Pedersen advanced his friend’s career with a resource the younger wrestler didn’t have: a car.
“I would drive him around to freestyle tournaments,” he said.
When Pedersen came back to the island in 2000 and became a volunteer assistant coach with the high school team, he got to know Pippinger all over again as an adult and as a coach.
To him, it’s no surprise that Pippinger now is the one in charge.
“Dan’s organized, he’s enthusiastic, he’s trying to promote the sport on Bainbridge and do great things for the sport,” Pedersen said. “He wants to get it back to where there were lots of people in the stands and lots of wrestlers on the team.”
A former BHS soccer and football player and wrestler, Pippinger, now 31, started out as a volunteer assistant, but became the head coach of the Spartan wrestling team this season when co-head coach Britton Johnson retired.
He’ll be at BHS from daybreak to nightfall today as Bainbridge hosts the 24th annual Island Invitational today at Paski Gymnasium (see box).
The Invitational started in 1985 when all of the Kitsap County teams took part in a tournament, with the winning school to host the event.
As Bainbridge won the first year and kept on winning, the tournament grew into what it is today.
Pippinger, who came in second in his weight class in his senior year at the Invitational in 1993, always knew he wanted to coach.
“Even when I was in high school I would coach a kids’ soccer team and help out with young kids that wanted to wrestle,” he said. “I always enjoyed coaching. There was just something about it for me that enjoys teaching and passing something along (to others.)”
He also likes the intricacies of coaching.
“As a coach you’re really involved,” Pippinger said. “It’s very hands-on, and I enjoy being in close contact with the wrestlers. You get to know them in a different way. It’s much more personal.”
Bainbridge wrestler James Gaunivinaka said that as individuals and as a team, the Spartans benefit from Pippinger’s willingness to get involved with their lives – on and off the mat.
“He’s the kind of coach that doesn’t have to yell at you to get his point across,” he said. “In practice he really drives you and makes you feel like you can keep going. But outside of practice he’s really fun to hang out with and a fun guy to be around.
“For him, the number one thing is school. He makes sure we go to tutoring after school if our grades aren’t good,” Gaunivinaka added, citing a recent occurrence when Pippinger checked up on a wrestler’s grades and even took him to and from tutoring while practice was going on.
Pippinger also made sure that Gaunivinaka, who suffered a major injury earlier in the season when he broke his arm in two places during a match, had his support.
“Before I could even say ‘Coach, help me,’ he was right there,” Gaunivinaka said. “Both him and Matt were right there.”
Pippinger not only had Gaunivinaka return to practice to work out with the team as soon as he could, but also asked him to film matches and brought him along with the team for road meets.
“At tournaments, I’ll see guys just sitting there and their coaches are off on their own, or talking with other coaches,” Gaunivinaka said, but Pippinger will always be with them to give advice and get them ready.
That giving attitude has been prevalent in Pippinger as he was growing up on the island.
“I had a lot of people in this community that I gained really meaningful relationships through working for them and being in a relationship with them,” he said. “There were people in this community who treated me like a son and they gave me a lot of the values that I have, (like) working hard and playing hard and doing everything with a 100 percent intensity and always working to be the best and not settling for half the effort.”
Pippinger also credits his strong Christian faith for helping him along the way.
“A lot of the things I talk about come from my faith,” he said. “For me, my faith gives me a positive purpose for me doing the things that I do, so it’s exciting for me to live out that faith and revealing what I believe through the lessons taught by wrestling.”
Strong faith
It was that intensity and faith that came through when Pippinger first got involved with wrestling through his eighth grade PE class.
“I remember going home (that day) and saying ‘I want to wrestle,’” Pippinger said. “I had some other friends that were doing it and I got into it more and more.
“I got addicted to it,” he continued. “I enjoyed the intensity of it and started doing it year round when I wasn’t doing something else.”
When he wasn’t playing soccer, he attended numerous wrestling tournaments. Many times, he was the only one from the island who participated.
“I always had a passion for improving and getting better,” he said. “If I was going to do it, I was going to work hard at it and be as good as I can be.”
That passion helped him while he was playing for a county soccer team and wrestling during his senior year.
“I know my intensity level raised for just about everything because of wrestling,” Pippinger said. “Whether it was soccer or the way I studied, or whatever I did, by raising my level like that in sport, I could raise my level in everything else and be successful.
“That’s what I try to teach as a coach: the lessons you learn from a sport cross over in so many other things in life.”
In his prep wrestling career, Pippinger just missed attending Mat Classic state meet as a junior – he went as a alternate – but made it as a senior after placing second at districts.
But he separated his shoulder two days before the tournament and lost his two matches, both by decision.
“I wasn’t as successful as I could have been,” he said. “Maybe that’s one of the reasons I’m a coach, is that in some ways I knew that I could have reached something and I didn’t get the chance. So in some ways it keeps my intensity level up.
“I think failure and not reaching the goals for myself sets the goals that much higher.”
After graduation, Pippinger worked on the island for a year, then attended the Moody Bible Institute in downtown Chicago, Ill.
As a freshman, he was on the Archer soccer team that won a National Christian College Athletic Association Division II title.
He graduated with a degree in education and pre-counseling, then came back to the island and attended Seattle Pacific University, where he earned a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy.
About the same time, he started as an assistant volunteer coach with the team in 1999, then became an assistant coach.
When long-time Spartan head coach Steve Hohl left to take football and wrestling coach positions in California last year, Pippinger and Johnson became co-head coaches.
But when Johnson called two weeks before the season to say he was retiring, the mantle of head coach was thrust upon Pippinger.
Good counsel
Away from the mat, Pippinger spends time with Cheryl, his wife of eight years and their two kids, Aletha and Kareese.
He also works part-time as a counselor for students at Sakai Intermediate School, and has a private practice as a family and marriage counselor.
He also provides the same service for Helpline House for families at a sliding rate.
The counseling he provides to teenagers, married couples and families can be summed up by the words he lives by: “Live to serve.”
“If I can teach these guys anything, it’s ‘Live to serve,’ he said. “The greatest leaders in the world, I believe, are servants: to serve community, to serve people, to fill and meet needs and have those needs be met.
“My goal is to find an aspect of leadership in themselves where they lead through their ability to serve.” Pippinger continued.
“If I can teach that through giving to community and being thankful for what we have, then their wrestling records really don’t matter at that point.
“I’m in the process of building men, and I want to see men that have high integrity and have values and I want them to be successful.”
To reach those ends, he organized a Teacher Appreciation night earlier in the season for wrestlers to honor their teachers.
The team will also hold a “Wrestling Against Hunger” Night during Senior Night on Jan. 18, when Bainbridge hosts Eastside Catholic.
Fans are asked to bring in non-perishable foods with them to the match, with all the donations going to Helpline House.
He not only hopes to make the events a tradition, but that he becomes a part of it as well.
“I think I’ll be here for the long haul,” Pippinger said. “If I can keep a job here, I don’t see myself going anywhere else.
“When I get to the end of this road I want people to say ‘Oh, Bainbridge wrestling, I know something about that.’ I want it to be a program that people want to be part of and they want to participate in and connect with.”
Pedersen believes that is a goal that Pippinger can accomplish.
“Dan has put a ton of energy into this,” he said. “He really wants wrestling on Bainbridge Island to flourish.
“If he wasn’t around here, I don’t know where Bainbridge wrestling would be.”
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All-day grapple
The 24th annual Island Invitational starts at 9:30 a.m. today at Paski Gymnasium. 11 teams are participating: Bishop Blanchet (who won last year), Curtis, Edmonds-Woodway, Forks, Meadowdale, Mercer Island, Nathan Hale, North Mason, Port Townsend, Sequim and Tyee. There will be a pancake breakfast at 8 a.m. in the cafeteria. The cost is $5 and all are welcome to attend. All proceeds go to Bainbridge wrestling boosters.
