By Rich Winter

605 Sports

RAPID CITY — There is not a student attending Lakota Tech high school that has not been recruited to wrestle by coach Dave Michaud. 

In years past the long-time Pine Ridge coach and now Tatanka coach has been limited to putting posters on his classroom door and waving down potential wrestlers in the hall. A change in his daily routine helped Michaud have a more impactful way of coaxing kids to the mat. 

“I have been doing volunteer work in the kitchen during my open period,” he said. “I am able to see kids over a three period span and I go up to every kid and ask them if they would like to give wrestling a try.”

Whatever he’s pitching the Lakota Tech student body is buying as 35 boys and 29 girls are on the 2024-25 rosters. When Lakota Tech High School opened its doors in 2020 the state-of-the-art facility had a brand new wrestling room with one mat. Fast forward several years and the team has already outgrown the wrestling room and now has practice on the high school gym’s second floor that has two mats. 

For the last three seasons it has been the Lakota Tech girls gaining the most notoriety. The girls team finished sixth at the 2024 South Dakota state tournament and featured the school’s first-ever state champion, Giada Scherich. 

Senior Cante White Bull was a state qualifier in 2024 and won the 126-pound championship at Tuesday’s Lakota Nation tournament. 

“This tournament is a big deal on the Reservation and makes you feel good,” she said. “Beating someone (Custer’s Addie Sanders) that is really good means all the hard work I put in this summer and in the early mornings is paying off.” 

White Bull started wrestling her freshman year partially because of an already established connection with coach Michaud. White Bull attributes the explosion of numbers at Lakota Tech directly to coach Michaud. 

“I wasn’t the best kid my first few years of high school and that never stopped the coach from working with me,” White Bull said. “There are coaches that if you don’t act right or aren’t naturally talented that won’t give you a chance. Dave gives everyone a chance and for him it's not about winning, it's about participation.” 

For Michaud there is no kid that he won’t try to coach, often reaching out to students that might normally slip through the cracks. 

“I always tell them that too many kids get out of high school and all they think about is I’m glad I’m out of there,” he said. “I want them to have memories and something they can be proud of. We do a lot for our good athletes but not for your average kid which is like 75 percent of the student body.” 

On Tuesday the might of the Tatanka wrestling team was felt as the girls and boys teams easily won their respective team championships.

The Tatanka boys had just one champion Tuesday, Zuniyan Iron Eyes (144) who placed eighth in the 2024 Class A state tournament (138). 

“Having this many kids out for wrestling is just unbelievable,” he said. “I never thought that we would have so many kids at a native school out for wrestling.”

Iron Eyes said winning a title Tuesday in front of ‘his people’ was extremely satisfying. He said that part of his success comes from serving as a role model to the next generation of Tatanka wrestlers.

“I train every day in the morning and try to do extra reps to give myself the best chance to win,” he said. “On the reservation poverty and drugs are prevalent so I stay sober, don’t drink and go to ceremonies and I hope that sets an example for my peers that are younger than me.”