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03/16/2017 12:00 AMKen Markwat has a diverse background in combat sports through his experiences as a Haddam-Killingworth wrestling alum and an instructor of mixed martial arts. As an assistant coach with the Cougars’ wrestling squad, Ken uses what he’s learned from both sports to make sure that his athletes always keep an open mind when attacking the mat.
Ken graduated from H-K in 2011 and has been an assistant wrestling coach at the high school ever since. He also teaches jiu-jitsu both in Killingworth and at Central Connecticut State University. Ken says that while it feels great to give back to his alma mater by coaching the sport he competed in during high school, he gets an even better feeling from using his multiple athletic influences to help develop Haddam-Killingworth’s grapplers.
“When I graduated, the other coaches knew I was staying local and wanted to coach, so they kept me on to help me get my feet wet. I’ve had a lot of different coaches through wrestling and jiu-jitsu and I learned a lot of things from them through seeing things that they did that I either liked or didn’t like. It’s all shaped how I communicate with the team,” says Ken. “In combat sports, there is no one way to do something. I try to have the kids approach wrestling with their creativity and look at it in their unique way.”
Ken says that his decision to go into coaching is easily one of the best choices he’s ever made. He gets great satisfaction when he sees one of H-K’s wrestlers take what they learned in practice and then put that into practice during a match.
“Coaching is one of the coolest things I’ve done with my life and I want to keep coaching. I’m so proud of the kids I coach. I’ve spent so much time with them and have watched them grow,” Ken says. “It’s cool to see the kids all have their own experiences and, with wrestling, it’s all on them out there and you let them have their match.”
H-K Head Coach Nick Adler dishes out plenty of superlatives when describing how Ken gets invested in his athletes, while breaking down every technique to a T.
“I would challenge you to find a coach in any sport who cares more for his athletes than Kenny does. He will do whatever it takes to help his wrestlers hit their goals before their time with us is up. He truly puts everything he has towards helping anyone who steps into his practice,” says Adler. “Kenny’s coaching philosophy stems from a ‘Knowledge is power’ foundation. He tries to provide his athletes with an in-depth knowledge of techniques from every position, understanding that things don’t always go perfectly how you imagined. This way, you have options for whatever might happen.”
“To quote Kenny himself, ‘When doing a technique, you should know where every finger and toe needs to be and be able to react to their reactions.’ He believes that by teaching in this way wrestlers will not only be able to learn the move, but they will be able to teach, and, even beyond that, they will be able to teach someone to teach it. Kenny and I joke, ‘You don’t give a man a fish. You teach a man to teach a man to teach a man to fish.’” Adler continues. “I’ve been lucky enough to see Kenny in multiple roles, both as a colleague and my own coach. I now train under Kenny in jiu-jitsu, which he teaches in town. It’s so impressive to see the wealth of knowledge at his disposal, which translates between the two grappling arts that he teaches.”
Ken first grew interested in jiu-jitsu when he was in high school and feels that competing in that arena helped him reach another level as a wrestler. Ken says that jiu-jitsu is a sport that flexes one’s brain just as much as the muscles.
“I got into jiu-jitsu when I started wrestling. I always had an interest in mixed martial arts and I started at a nearby gym. I started to realize how similar wrestling and jiu-jitsu were and it helped me get better at wrestling,” he says. “There are so many different techniques in jiu-jitsu, so you have to open your mind up. I’ve used things from wrestling in jiu-jitsu and vice versa. The students also see how similar they are.”
Haddam-Killingworth wrestling is still one of the newer programs in Connecticut. However, Ken has seen the team grow by leaps and bounds while both competing for and coaching with the Cougars, and he feels that they’re on the right track to attain some big-time postseason goals.
“The H-K program is only 11 [to] 12 years old. A lot of kids who started had no prior experience and they had years with winless dual-meet records early on. But then you have kids go from freshmen to seniors and grow and then the younger kids have examples of what they should look like when they wrestle,” says Ken. “We keep building and going further with sending kids to states in Class S and the State Open. Our goals are to win Class S as a team and also have some solo State Open champs.”