As a prep at North Scott high school, Kreiter would be introduced to his destiny even before he would realize it. Participating in football, baseball, and wrestling, a sport his late father would introduce both him and his brother to, created in Kreiter a life-long commitment to teaching and wrestling hidden inside a serious challenge.
Kurt Kreiter"I had no idea what I wanted to do. I really liked my biology teacher, who ironically was a DeWitt grad," Kreiter mentions with a smile. "I told myself, that's what I wanted to do."
While the first chain of his destiny would appear to him that sophomore year, it would soon be replaced by another.
Entering his junior year, Kreiter would soon be faced with his destiny, disguised as a challenge that would forever shape him.
"I was a junior in high school, and I developed a mass on my testicle and was diagnosed with testicular cancer," Kreiter explains. "I ended up going to the hospital at the university of Indianapolis, were I would receive medical treatment." Kreiter adds, "I would have the same doctors that Lance Armstrong would later have."
Kreiter would fight through this challenge, referring to the event as "a major turning point" in his life. While he won the battle with cancer, it affected Kreiter's athletic career.
"It really didn't do a lot for me as an athlete my senior year. I lost a lot of weight and had major surgery," states Kreiter.
But the experience would leave a lasting mark.
"I decided at a young age that when confronted with something like this I wanted to be a certain type of person and knowing now that you're really never sure what life is going to throw at you, I decided that I was going to try to do what I could, to become that type of person," Kreiter said.
That year Kreiter still wrestled and played baseball and football. In fact, he did not miss a football practice, a real life testimony to the lesson of resiliency he would later teach to his future wrestlers. Kreiter would fall short of his goal of qualifying for the state meet that senior season, setting in motion the next part of his story.
Knowing that Kurt wanted to farm, Kreiter's father stepped in and told him that he had to attend college. Leaving high school both frustrated and disgusted after not qualifying for the state tournament, Kreiter scrapped a plan to attend Central College to wrestle. Instead he attended the university of Iowa. He tried to leave the sport of wrestling, but his destiny lured him back into the sport a short time later.
After a year at Iowa, Kreiter would miss the sport that he felt he had walked away from. Transferring to Augustana College to play football, he enrolled in a wrestling coaching and officiating class that was the catalyst to get him back into wrestling.
After a few times, they would eventually invite Kreiter to come join them, allowing him to move on to the next link in his destiny. He would become a three-year starter for Augustana, wrestling at 190 pounds. He earned academic All-American honors his senior season, and qualified for the national tournament twice.
Leaving college having already faced several challenges, Kreiter would be ready to tackle his next. Just like the sophomore teacher who would inspire Kreiter to enter the education profession, he would find himself at the school Mr. Warren had graduated from.
Kreiter would serve as an assistant for two years before becoming the head wrestling coach at DeWitt High School, a position he has held for the past 18 seasons. Kreiter is only 11 duals wins away from 200, and holds a career dual meet record of 189-163, but the numbers only tell half the challenge of taking over the Saber program.
"The first few years were pretty rough," Kreiter mentions with a half smile, "the first three years we were 4-42. I had fifty losses before I had 10 wins and 100 losses before I had 50 wins."
While Kreiter credits being young and holding on to the vision he saw for the program as a reason for hanging in there, the very thing he stresses to his athletes: commitment, played an even larger role. He would be tested with another challenge that would serve as the turning point of the program.
When he felt that his team was ready to take the next step, Kreiter entered a double dual in 1992 against Northeast and Fulton, and his team was throttled.
"We just got annihilated." Kreiter quickly continues, "We told the guys we were going to have an optional practice the next day to see who really wanted to practice, to wrestle; we had one guy show up."
From that point on Kreiter decided that the only way to change the attitude of the program was to make it as hard as he could to ensure that only the strong survived. Four years later Kreiter would crown his first state champion, and recently he sent seven qualifiers to the state meet and placed fourth in the class 2A state duals.
While the success is something Kreiter points out as goals he has had for the program, he feels that coaching offers so much more, and being a cancer survivor for twenty-five years has played an important part of what he wants to teach his wrestlers.
"Being a cancer survivor has helped to keep things in perspective. I talk about my experiences with cancer. Coaching's a privilege, and also a responsibility. as coaches we have a lot more to offer guys -- life lessons we've experienced, and to help them out in tough situations, but most importantly commitment. To be successful you have to commit yourself. Attitude, resiliency, and time management, time is the only thing that is equal, everyone has only 24 hours a day to work with."
Kurt KreiterThis season there are new challenges on the way. Among others, Kreiter must try to replace a senior class that put DeWitt on the map, and he must now face his brother, who has just been named the new North Scott head coach.
Even though the Saber head coach graduated from North Scott, he lets it be known what his true colors are, "I bleed Purple and gold, instead of scarlet and gray now," Kreiter says with a wide grin. While talking about the dual with his brother this season, Kreiter briefly says, "I'm excited. I'd like to beat him."
But Kreiter, who is a passionate teacher and candidly says, "There's not a day I haven't looked forward to coming to work at Central," knows in the end that wins and losses don't measure the success of a coach. "When it's all said and done I'm not going to be judged by my peers, or my athletes, by the wins and losses, I'm going to be judged by a lot of other things."
While the farming community has missed out on a great man, his destiny let the education profession inherit one of those men that are hard to find but even harder to replace.
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