The City Kids

 

Rising out of the ashes, I built a state powerhouse that garnered national attention  for their meteoric rise to prominence. Operating without a youth program, the team qualified for the WIAA State Team Tournament in the fourth year of the program and notched an individual state champion a year later. In five seasons with a fledgling program, I led Custer to four WIAA Regional Team Titles, three Milwaukee City Conference Team Titles and one WIAA Sectional Title.  More impressively; the team graduated 98% of its participants; a stark contrast to the school's rate of 31%.

 

The Custer experience proved to be much more than a wrestling team.  While there, I founded an off-season wrestling club held at the Northside YMCA in Milwaukee.  For five years, hundreds of area wrestlers flocked to the club in one of inner-city Milwaukee's most troubled neighborhoods.  The team gained notoriety for winning and sportsmanship; often publicly recognized for their performance and positive manner in which they competed.  The team embraced their city roots; often sporting white singlets with the word "CITY KID" emblazoned on the back.   While there, PBS filmed and released a documentary entitled Wrestling City Kids, which won a WABA for Best Full Length Documentary of 2003.  

 

For my work at Custer, Tomes was named Wrestling USA Magazine's National Coach of the Year for 2002; becoming the youngest coach to ever win the award (29)and the only coach from WI to be honored by the nation's largest wrestling publication.