A Manatee legend leads Saint Stephen’s wrestling breakthrough

Tucked high in the rafters above the basketball court in Hoagland Arena sits a history-making program for Saint Stephen’s. The wrestling rooms are situated in a relatively remote part of Saint Stephen’s Episcopal School’s campus and for years the team that occupies those rooms had been, basically, forgotten.

The Falcons’ history was limited to a handful of individuals toiling in the sparsely populated gymnasium, perhaps winning a tournament here or finishing well at a district tournament there — until Bobby Latessa, a Harvard-educated, Manatee County wrestling legend, decided to take on an unusual job.

“The idea of growing a program was pretty exciting,” said Latessa, who is in his fourth season as the Falcons’ head coach. “This was a program that was just off the ground, and it hadn’t really existed for more than a couple years.”

Latessa’s pedigree was mismatched with Saint Stephen’s history. The Falcons were typically a nonfactor in the high school wrestling scene, scraping by with tiny rosters and no serious state-tournament threats. Latessa had been a two-time state champion on the other side of Manatee Avenue with Manatee in 2002 and 2003, and then went on to wrestle for four years with the Crimson.

The marriage appealed to Latessa, even if he had never thought about wrestling at Saint Stephen’s. The Falcons didn’t have a team when Latessa was a Hurricane, and the chance to build a program from scratch was appealing.

In four years, Latessa has transformed Saint Stephen’s from an afterthought into a program that will send four to the Class 1A meet Friday and Saturday in Kissimmee. With the Bradenton native at the helm, 120-pounder Alan Morano, 132-pounder Max Manning, 160-pounder Jake Ross and 170-pounder Parker Lansberg are Saint Stephen’s first four state qualifiers, capping an already historic season.

“I can’t say that I quite expected this,” Manning said. “The attention that we’ve been getting is amazing.”

Latessa started small in 2013. The previous coach abruptly left the program and Latessa stepped in, not necessarily realizing how much of a commitment the job would be. He had two or three wrestlers with limited experience at most, so the early years were about building fundamentals. One wrestler from that original team — Lansberg — is now a state qualifier as a junior.

The rest of the roster started to fill in the next year. Ross transferred to the school as a freshman in 2014 and joined the wrestling team. Manning and his brother, Jake, moved to Florida from Pennsylvania and brought a measure of experience to the program. By last winter, Saint Stephen’s had inched toward respectability. Manning and Lansberg both reached the region tournament, and when they lost the Falcons were left with a feeling of bitter disappointment rather than excitement with the team’s progress.

“We were all kind of disappointed in where we were as a team,” Lansberg said, “and we all said, ‘Next year our goal is to qualify for states.’”

One thing Latessa tried to make clear to his team when he took over the program was the importance of treating wrestling as at least something of a year-round sport. He knows that at a private school basically everyone is playing multiple sports, but it doesn’t mean wrestling can be forgotten during the offseason. He always had sporadic turnout during the summers. This year, everyone spent two or three days each week during the summer in the wrestling room. Every other weekend, the Falcons would travel to some tournament.

“He completely changed my perspective on wrestling and kind of got me excited about the sport,” Lansberg said. “He was definitely a big part of that.”

Lansberg and Manning took the steps they needed to reach the state tournament, and two of their other teammates made the strides to at least reach the region tournament.

Ross, who failed to even make it out of the district meet as a sophomore, vaulted all the way to the region title in 2017, becoming the Falcons’ first district champion and first region champion. Throw in a handful of transfers — including Morano, who went to the state tournament with Bradenton Christian as an eighth-grader last season — and Saint Stephen’s has collectively reached uncharted territory.

And the Falcons don’t expect this to be the end. There wasn’t a single senior on the roster this season.

“It was really exciting to see that just before your eyes,” Latessa said. “You watch them grow, you watch them get noticeably better every day.”

This story was originally published February 28, 2017 at 9:31 PM with the headline "A Manatee legend leads Saint Stephen’s wrestling breakthrough."