St. Louis wrestling Todd Los Banos said yesterday that he's retiring as Saint Louis School's wrestling coach.
coach retires
Todd Los Banos led
the Crusaders to two
state championshipsBy Nick Abramo
nabramo@starbulletin.com"I've been fortunate to accomplish way more than I ever thought I would," he said. "Toward the middle of the season, I started thinking about stepping down. It all comes down to family. My family has sacrificed and I want to be with them more as the kids grow up."
Los Banos, 39, will be missed, not only at Saint Louis, but around the state.
"He's been awesome," Iolani athletic director and longtime wrestling coach Carl Schroers said. "Any time you lose a coach of that caliber, the whole state suffers. He's a great coach and what really separates him from others is he loves those kids. He puts everything he's got into it -- his whole heart into it."
Los Banos was an assistant at Iolani for 14 years and was the head man at Saint Louis the last seven years. He won three state titles -- in 1990 with the Raiders while Schroers was on sabbatical, and in 2001 and 2002 with the Crusaders.
A high-school wrestler in Arizona before moving to Hawaii, Los Banos has come full circle as a coach. He helped guide two wrestlers to four-time state championships -- Iolani's Patrick Higa in the 1980s and Saint Louis' Jonathan Spiker, who won his fourth title last month.
Los Banos credits Schroers with teaching him to get the most out of the athletes.
"I learned being around Carl," he said. "He always got the kids to believe in themselves. And that's what I tried to do. I believe in building people first and getting them to believe in me. Before they can start to become good wrestlers, they have to learn to strive for excellence in anything they do -- whether it's a 10-second drill or a six-minute match or your attitude in the weight room. Your best effort is critical."
Getting that kind of effort from his wrestlers led to many big moments for Los Banos. The most exhilarating one occurred far away from Hawaii's high school mats -- at Kansas City, Mo., on March 23.
That's when Cornell's Travis Lee, a former Crusader, became the first Hawaii wrestler to earn a national collegiate championship.
"I was there and with my wife and we were sitting with Travis' parents," Los Banos said. "It's indescribable the feeling I had -- to see how far he's come just two years out of high school. It's like he won the Super Bowl of wrestling. You can't go higher. I was going nuts, with chicken skin, jumping up and down.
"And it's not like he won easily. Those last three matches he won in the last 30 seconds. He still has that humble composure and that tenaciousness. It's the same kind of tenaciousness he had as an eighth-grader when he was wrestling for the intermediate championship and losing by nine going into the last one-minute period. He ended up winning by about five points. He looked the same in the national finals, the way he was stalking and looking at his opponent. It was just awesome."
Los Banos said he'll always remember the many top-notch wrestlers throughout the years, including Lee, Spiker, Gerald Welch, Troy Takahashi and Isaac Rodrigues at Saint Louis, and Higa, Todd Lee (Travis' brother) and Ryan Hoopii at Iolani.
And he doesn't want the Crusaders' young talent -- including state champions Ben Wilmore and freshman Brandon Low -- to think that he's just "bailing out" on them.
"I'll still try to help whenever possible. I just need time for myself and my family," said Los Banos, who will also reduce his role in the summer with USA Wrestling Hawaii.
He'll continue to teach physical education at Saint Louis.
Crusaders athletic director Cal Lee has a tough job ahead, finding a replacement.
"I'm not sure what's going to happen," Los Banos said. "We've got some good assistants who could possibly step in, but I'm sure Cal will be leaving things open for a while."
Hawaii School Web Sites