Enthusiastic wrestling coach on the student who forced a change of heart
Bradley Harper (HHS’05) lives his life to the extreme. “It’s the only way to be,” says the 37-year-old wrestling coach at Penn High School in South Bend, Indiana. In his 11 seasons as head coach of the Kingsmen grapplers, Harper has grown his roster to more than 80 wrestlers, brought home the first team state championship in school history (2015), and won the first-ever all-girls’ state championship (2017).
Harper describes the boys’ championship as “one of the better moments of my career.” Though he’s equally proud of the girls’ championship, it’s a victory that may never have happened were it not for one tenacious eighth-grade girl.
Sarah Hildebrandt vividly remembers her first encounter with Harper. During a middle school meeting, the newly hired coach asked each of the players to share their results for the season so he could gauge their potential as incoming freshmen, but he skipped right over Hildebrandt. She didn’t get the chance to tell him that despite being the only girl on the team, she had the strongest record — wrestling against boys — and she was the only wrestler who’d gone undefeated and won conference. She was determined to prove her worth to the new coach. And if he wouldn’t listen, she’d just have to show him her mettle.
Problem was, Harper was just as determined to see her fail. “I didn’t want her on the team,” Harper admits, unabashedly. “I tried to make her quit.” He wasn’t subtle about his efforts. Hildebrandt was relegated to a smaller side room during practices, not unusual for younger wrestlers. She also was paired with larger, tougher kids — still wrestling against boys — and largely ignored by the coaches. It was a tough freshman year.
“They made it as hard as possible for me,” says Hildebrandt. “It wasn’t a specific, ‘We don’t want you here,’ but it wasn’t like ‘We’re okay with it.’” Despite the challenges she encountered, she finished with a decent record and returned to wrestle as a sophomore. “That’s when things changed,” she says. “Brad and I started working together, putting in a lot of time. We became this dynamic duo, and it’s been like that since.”
What Harper couldn’t see at first was that Hildebrandt possessed the discipline of the sport required to win championships. “There’s no one else to hide behind in wrestling,” he says. “It’s all about the aspect of one on one. You put in the time, you get the results. It’s not about wins and losses; it’s about training hard and being the hardest worker. It’s about pushing yourself mentally and physically on the mat. That’s what motivated me as an athlete.”
Harper credits former Purdue wrestling coach Scott Hinkel (LA’88, MS HHS’90) with influencing his coaching philosophy. Competing under Hinkel, Harper was a two-time NCAA qualifier. “Scott taught me to have the mindset that you can push yourself a lot harder than you think you can,” says Harper. It’s that work ethic, focus, and determination that Harper instills in his own students — boys and girls.
Once Hildebrandt had some success on the mat, other girls at Penn started taking an interest in wrestling. At the time, she was one of only three high school girls in the state competing in the sport. Over the years, Penn built a strong girls’ wrestling club, which is why the school was poised to snare the inaugural state championship. The girls had the support of the entire school behind them. Students lined the hallways to cheer on the team before the competition.
“To win a state title, you can’t do it alone,” says Harper. “You need a family. You need a support system. We’re one big wrestling family. Even after you graduate, you’re part of the long black line for life.”
Harper stresses that he’s not just molding athletes; he’s building strong character. He’s pushing students to work as hard as they can to reach their goals on and off the mat. He easily rattles off the pedigree of the Penn wrestling pro-gram — doctors, lawyers, top salesmen, Marine Corps officers. He hopes to soon be able to add Olympian to the list.
After a disappointing seventh-place finish at the World Championships in Budapest in December 2016, Hildebrandt is training harder than ever in hopes of clenching a spot on Team USA for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. And it’s a journey she can’t imagine making without Harper as her personal coach.
“I try to bring Brad out for all my big tournaments,” says Hildebrandt. “He has so much positive energy. He really cares about the individual, and he has an amazing ability to motivate and inspire others. He’s somebody I want to be in my corner.”
This story appeared in the Winter 2017 issue of Purdue Alumnus magazine.
