2008 Woodie Awards
A courteous coach
Borrelli humble as he becomes school leader in career wins
By: Aaron Sides
Issue date: 1/16/08 Section: Sports
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Along the way, he has accumulated a record-setting 196 victories, making him the winningest coach in school history.
Borrelli took over as CMU's coach in 1991 after a successful run at Lake Superior State University, where he won the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship and was GLIAC Coach of the Year.
The program he inherited at CMU, though, was nowhere near what it is today. However, he saw there was a program that had a chance to succeed, and he wanted to be the one to lead them to that success.
"I saw the potential for wrestling at CMU," Borrelli said. "There was a lot of change going on at CMU at the time and I saw the potential for growth."
Borrelli said things were rough at first, but once more of his recruits started coming in and buying into his system, the program started to improve.
"It was really tough the first four years. It was difficult to get guys to believe in the way I wanted them to train," he said. "Once my group was in place there were higher goals and higher expectations."
The program had its first major accomplishment in 1998 when it won its first Mid-American Conference title. Borrelli had the program moving in the right direction and people were noticing.
"Once our success started happening crowd sizes went up and the administration started supporting the program," he said. "We were getting better quality athletes and more resources were being put into the program."
Since that first title, the success of the team has remained constant, allowing the wins total to keep going up for Borrelli. Though many will credit him with surpassing the win record, he puts the praise entirely on the wrestlers that he has coached.
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