Chase Arens was recently approved as the next Spring Valley/Elmwood wrestling coach. Arens just wrapped up his first year as the Spring Valley cross country coach and is ready for the winter sports season.

Arens is from Princeton, Minne., where he wrestled from his kindergarten through senior years. His grandfather Dave is a National Hall of Fame wrestling coach, and his father was a coach as well, so he comes from a wrestling family. He has spent the last three years as an assistant wrestling coach for the SVE squad.

“I’m really passionate about the sport of wrestling. I think it helps build character in men and women,” Arens said. “I’ve built relationships with these athletes, and I really care about the community.”

There were about nine wrestlers in the program when Arens became an assistant, a number that has grown well into the 30s. The goal is to keep up the forward momentum for years to come on and off the mat.

“It will take focus every day,” Arens said. “The season’s pretty long, and there’s a lot of little nagging injuries in wrestling.”

While cross country and wrestling may seem like vastly different sports, Arens said the two have plenty of similarities, and coaching one will help him coach the other.

“There are a lot of similarities in the two sports, because in basketball or football, you have all your teammates out there on the field with you. In a cross country race you kind of do too, but really it’s also an individual sport as it is a team sport. So, I think that’s a big similarity between the two,” Arens said. “It was nice just to get some head coach experience leading into this job.”

The season begins in early December, and Arens is committed to having the team motivated and ready to go when they first take the mat.

“I want a culture where the best athletes on my team are excited to show up every day and push each other to get better, and also someone new and inexperienced can go there and feel like they have a place they belong,” Arens said.