Shores' Karel Blazes Smart Path to Stardom
January 5, 2016
By Tom Kendra
Special for Second Half
Samuel Karel is not only the epitome of a true student-athlete. He is also proof that there are many different roads to becoming a high school all-stater.
Especially in wrestling.
“You don’t always have to be the most athletic or the most naturally talented to win the match,” explained Karel, a senior returning all-state wrestler for Muskegon Mona Shores, who is 15-3 with 10 pins this season at 160 pounds.
“You can put in time and effort and find a way to come out ahead.”
Karel has certainly done that, improving from a mediocre grappler as a freshman to a legitimate MHSAA title contender as a senior. But his ascent has been aided by an often overlooked skill in athletics, an intangible which has decided more games and matches than anything else in prep sports but is not as readily apparent as size and speed.
That skill is intelligence.
In addition to pursuing his championship dream on the mat, Karel sports a gaudy 4.24 grade-point average while juggling a class load featuring four Advanced Placement classes – AP Statistics, AP Literature, AP Environmental Science and AP Microeconomics.
Mona Shores coach Blake Groenhout said Karel brings that cerebral approach to the wrestling mat, which has enabled him to figure out a way to beat many opponents who possess superior athletic ability.
“Samuel’s biggest strength is that he is a real technician,” explained Groenhout, who said Karel has always been good on his feet but has improved on the mat. “He works really hard, and he’s always thinking ahead and is able to pull off some big wins in that way.”
A great example of that came at last year’s Division 1 Individual Finals, when Karel found himself in the infamous “blood round” where a victory would make him an all-stater as a top-eight placer at 152 pounds. Unfortunately, his opponent had beaten him 9-2 just one week earlier at Individual Regionals.
This time, Karel fought a smarter match.
The low-scoring bout turned into a chess match, which played into Karel’s hands. Karel scored a takedown in the first period, while his opponent evened the score in the second – and the score remained 2-2 until just a handful of seconds remained. With overtime looking like a certainty, Karel was able to get away for an escape and a 3-2 victory as time expired.
“I was jumping around and going crazy after that,” Karel said with a laugh.
It was quite an achievement for someone who couldn’t even manage a winning record his freshman year, finishing 14-14 at 145 pounds. He improved to 28-10 his sophomore year at 160 pounds, including city and Ottawa-Kent Conference Black titles, but fell one win short of making it to the MHSAA Finals. He finished 44-9 last year at 152 pounds, repeating as city and conference champion and capping things off with his 8th-place finish at The Palace of Auburn Hills.
Making all-state was a notable athletic achievement since most of his accolades have come as a student.
Karel was one of three Muskegon-area high school seniors to be named a National Merit Scholarship semifinalist this fall. He will find out this spring if he is a finalist for a National Merit Scholarship pool, which totals $32 million.
He credits his experience in sports – both as a standout and team captain on the wrestling team and as a reserve and role player on the Sailors’ football team – for giving him discipline and resilience to be successful in school and the rest of his life.
“Wrestling can get boring, working on the same things over and over, so you have to find a way to keep it new and fresh,” said Karel. “I try to have fun in the room every day and try to think back to what motivated me when I first started wrestling.”
Two more secret weapons for Karel are his family and faith.
The youngest of Paul and Deb Karel’s four children, he has plenty of support from older sisters Martha and Lydia, both students at Lee University in Tennessee, and older brother Simon, a freshman offensive lineman at Trinity College near Chicago.
The Karels have been fixtures in the Mona Shores district for almost 20 years and even longer at Olivet Evangelical Free Church, where Samuel plays guitar and drums at church services (“Music takes away my stress,” he explained).
Karel also will be heading out of state for college, as he will join the club wrestling program at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. He plans to major in mathematics and then pursue a career as a mathematician (possibly working for the National Security Agency) or an actuary.
For right now, he is focused on making the most of his final high school season on the mat.
Karel reached the coveted 100-win plateau last month at the Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern Invitational. Last week, he finished 3-1 at Grandville’s tournament to improve to 15-3 with 10 pins this season.
As a team captain, he also wants to help two of his teammates try to close out their senior seasons as all-state wrestlers. Sean Halverson is 11-2 at 112 pounds, and Nick Brown is 10-6 at 215 pounds. Those two, along with Karel, form the “Big 3” for Mona Shores wrestling, Groenhout said.
“I made him a captain as a junior, which is rare, but he has such great dedication and enthusiasm for the sport,” Groenhout explained. “He is the one who sets the standard. Our younger guys, like (standout freshman) Josh Hill, they all want to be like Sam.”
Tom Kendra worked 23 years at The Muskegon Chronicle, including five as assistant sports editor and the final six as sports editor through 2011. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Muskegon, Oceana, Mason, Lake, Oceola, Mecosta and Newaygo counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Mona Shores senior Samuel Karel, the youngest of Deb and Steve Karel's four children, has won more than 100 matches already in his career, with most of his senior season still to come. (Middle) Karel is a standout on and off the wrestling mat. The senior returning all-stater, also a National Merit Scholarship semifinalist, recently won his 100th career match. (Photos courtesy of the Karel family.)
After All-American Career, Rockford's Bennett Making Impact as Mat Mentor
By
Dean Holzwarth
Special for MHSAA.com
July 25, 2023
ROCKFORD – Ben Bennett knew from an early age what he wanted his career path to be.
“I always wanted to coach,” the former Rockford High School wrestling standout said. “I think I have wanted to coach since I was in middle school. I wanted to be a college wrestling coach.”
Bennett, 33, is currently living out his dreams of becoming a collegiate coach as a member of the Central Michigan University wrestling program.
Bennett, one of the most decorated wrestlers in CMU history, is in his 10th season on 32-year coach Tom Borrelli’s staff.
“I was getting ready to graduate, and a position opened up,” Bennett said. “I think Coach Borrelli knew that I really wanted to stay involved in wrestling and get into coaching. I was fortunate enough to slide into that position, and he had enough faith in me to let me stay here.”
Before getting the opportunity to coach, Bennett amassed eight years of unbridled success at the high school and collegiate levels.
He was a three-time Individual Finals champion at Rockford and helped lead the Rams to a Division 1 team championship as a junior.
“I had a really good high school experience, and I really enjoyed wrestling for our head coach at the time, Don Rinehart,” Bennett said. “He coached for a long time, and we always had some very competitive teams.
“In 2007, my junior year, we won the team state duals, but every year we were really competitive and had multiple individual state champions. Those were the type of teams I was able to wrestle on, which made it pretty exciting and pretty fun when you have those types of guys around you.”
After excelling through the junior ranks, Bennett made an immediate impact for the Rams and captured the Division 1 championship at 140 pounds as a freshman.
However, the following year, he took third at 152 after losing a semifinal match 2-1.
That defeat was humbling for Bennett but also showed him how to handle adversity.
“At the time, in my eyes, the world was ending,” Bennett said. “You look back and it probably was more of a positive. It's good to have those things happen to you, and you face some adversity.
“And I think that's more relatable to life rather than just when you win all the time. I did a lot of winning, but when things are really important, sometimes it's good to fail, for things not to go your way because it will probably happen for the rest of your life.
“You have to learn how to respond and come back from that and handle it the right way and just get back to work. At the time, I remember how devastated I was, but looking back it probably was a positive thing long term.”
Bennett wound up collecting two more Individual Finals titles, at 160 and 171 pounds, to end his high school career and then was named Mr. Wrestler, receiving the award given to the top senior wrestler by the state coaches association.
“I wasn't even thinking that I might get that,” he said. “There are so many great high school wrestlers that come out every year, and thinking about the guys I wrestled … to be singled out as the one chosen for that award was pretty special.”
After graduation, Bennett took his talents to Mount Pleasant. He could’ve gone anywhere to wrestle, but found the right fit at CMU.
“I knew I wanted to wrestle in college, and it was close to home, which I liked,” Bennett said. “I didn't feel like I had to go across the country to have an opportunity to accomplish my goals. I felt like I could stay here and do that.”
Bennett is the only four-time All-American in CMU history and one of three Chippewas to have earned four individual Mid-American Conference titles.
Bennett twice earned the Chick Sherwood Award as CMU’s most valuable wrestler and was named the MAC Wrestler of the Year in 2012. He also had earned the MAC Freshman of the Year Award in 2010.
Bennett ranks sixth in CMU history with 121 career victories, and his career win percentage of .834 is fourth all-time. In 2013, he finished 31-2 for a .939 win percentage, the second-best in program history. He also won a school-record 30 consecutive matches during that season and finished a personal-best fourth at the national tournament.
“At the time I was disappointed with how my career went, because I was never a national champion,” Bennett said. “But I think looking back on it, I have a lot more appreciation for what I did.
“As a coach, I realize how hard it is to have success at the college level, and every year you see great wrestlers not make the podium. Sometimes I’m shocked when certain guys don’t place, and it makes me appreciate how hard it is to be a four-time All-American, let alone place one time or multiple times.”
The transition to the coaching side was a difficult process for Bennett, but he knew he wanted to mentor other wrestlers the way his former coaches did with him.
“You put so much into the sport and you realize how much time other people invested and how important it was for me to do well, and so I guess for me it was a hard transition to make,” Bennett said. “You’re so competitive and so focused on yourself, but then being able to help these guys improve, get better and hopefully accomplish their goals was something I was looking forward to doing.
“I had so many people help me do that, and then I was able to be in their shoes and give back to these guys.”
Coaching has kept him involved in a sport he loves.
“And I get to continue to learn and grow and develop in different areas, not just wrestling-wise,” he said. “I get to meet a lot of great people through wrestling and coaching. The guys who come through our program are pretty awesome people.
“I’m pretty fortunate, and I've really enjoyed the coaching side of it, being in the wrestling room with these guys. Getting them ready for a match and going over things after a match. There is a lot that goes into it, but I really enjoy it.”
The love of wrestling for Bennett began at 6 years old, when he was coached by his uncle Tom Bennett – a former Division III All-American – and dad Doug.
“My uncle did a ton for me wrestling-wise, and my dad was the conditioning and discipline-type guy,” Bennett said. “Together it was a good mix. For as long as I can remember, I was always in really good shape. I loved wrestling right away.”
Bennett admits that he probably missed out on a lot when he was younger because he was determined to be the best and his life revolved around wrestling and training.
“It can be a tough way to live, but at the time that's what I wanted to do so that's what I did,” Bennett said. “When I was little my dad always told me that I'm not going to take you across the country to these tournaments if we are not training to win the tournament, not going to fill out the brackets, so my whole life the goal was always to be a champion.
“Going into high school my goal was to be a four-time state champion. I wanted to win the senior nationals, the junior nationals, and I won all those things. Going into college, in my mind, the next step was to be a national champion, and I don't think you realize how hard it really is, and I don't think I realized how hard it was to be an All-American.”
Bennett was promoted to CMU associate head coach last June after spending nine seasons as an assistant. He said the biggest difference with his new position is on the administrative side.
“I do a lot of scheduling and budgeting, things I didn’t do as much before in my years as an assistant coach,” he said. “I’ve taken the reins on some of these things, and it’s good for me to learn.”
Bennett is content with his current role at CMU and continuing to evolve as a coach under Borrelli. However, he hopes to one day take that next step as the head coach of a collegiate program.
“That’s my ultimate goal with coaching,” he said. “When that will happen, I don’t know. I guess I’m not in a hurry. When it happens, it will happen. I’m just trying to learn as much as I can right now.
“Coach Borrelli is an unbelievable coach, leader, mentor and role model, so I’m trying to learn as much as I can from him and soak up as much as I can from him until I get an opportunity somewhere to be a head coach. Right now I'm happy with where I'm at, and when that time comes, it will come.”
Bennett, 33, is engaged to former Chippewas field hockey player Erica Garwood. The couple has been dating for seven years and will get married next month.
“We’re excited, and I’m sure life will really change when we start having kids,” Bennett said. “But it’s good right now. We both went to school here, and she has a good job at an elementary school in town. We enjoy it up here.”
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PHOTOS (Top) Rockford’s Ben Bennett stands atop the podium at the 2008 Individual Finals, and now with fiancé Erica Garwood. (Middle) Bennett wrestles Clarkston’s Adam Lauzun for the Division 1 title at 171 pounds that season. (Current photo courtesy of Ben Bennett; 2008 photos from MHSAA Archives.)