A Soft Place to Land: USA Wrestling Coach’s Corner feature on Paul Rademacher

Photo: Paul Rademacher (center) pictured with Indiana Tech student-athletes. Rademacher was named Mid-South Conference Coach of the Year for 2024-25.

Editor’s Note: This article appeared in WIN’s Volume 32 Issue 2, which printed on Oct. 31, 2025. 

By Tristan Warner

Many coaches will tell you one of the most difficult aspects of transitioning from athlete to coach is the move from selfishness to selflessness. As an athlete, naturally, the focus is on yourself, while as a coach, it is on the student-athletes.

Paul Rademacher exhibited a rare degree of selflessness and humility even at the peak of his college career while competing for the Oregon State Beavers (1999-2003).

“I was never the guy, but I was always there in the room and never missed anything,” Rademacher reflected. “My job wasn’t to be the guy on Saturday, and that was okay. My job was to be the guy on Monday through Friday. I gave it my best shot every day in practice and gave our starters my best look to help them be prepared.”

Needless to say, Rademacher’s transition into coaching was seamless. That same level of selflessness not only carried over but trickled down as an expectation for all of his programs to value.

While serving as a wildland firefighter from 2000-2015 in Washington, he also spent a great deal of his time coaching and mentoring student-athletes at Mount Vernon High School. He also served stints at Henley High School in Oregon and was associate head coach for Southern Oregon University’s women’s program for two seasons before accepting the head coaching position for Indiana Tech’s women’s program in the spring of 2019.

Since then, he has already had 11 NAIA All-Americans and his first national finalist in 207-pounder Riley Dempewolf last season.

“I started the girls’ team back at Mount Vernon (Wash.) in 2008 with just one athlete, so I knew how to build a girls’ team from zero,” Rademacher recalled.

He initially gravitated toward coaching girls because it challenged him to become a better, more detail-oriented coach, among other reasons, he posited.

“The girls really wanted to know what was going on. Sometimes the boys just want to do it their way. The girls weren’t like that. They really wanted to know and learn. I did notice I had to be a better coach for the girls. They wanted to know why, and I had to know the answers.

“It really opened my eyes to the fact that I have to know why we do things and be able to explain it. That was a big step into why I started full-time coaching females. Plus, coaching freestyle is a better use of my tactics and interest.”

Rademacher made full use of his resources at SOU and Indiana Tech, picking the brains of his predecessors and the men’s wrestling coaches at each institution.

He also mentioned that being able to get hired a full calendar year before beginning competition was paramount to his success in Fort Wayne.

“It gave me a year to recruit, which was invaluable. I moved across the country, so that first year, I got to meet all the high school coaches in the area. It was really valuable for me in the recruiting process. A lot of those coaches and athletes had seen me around a lot.”

While recruiting, Rademacher and his assistants look for three important elements, and that has never wavered, he said.

“The first thing is they have to love wrestling. If they do, I don’t have to worry about dragging them into the room.

“Secondly, they have to be coachable. We can get any athlete to their highest level. A lot of our All-Americans were not nationally ranked coming out of high school. We believe highly in our development process.

The third element is where that permeating sense of selflessness comes back into the fold.

“Number three is they have to be a good teammate. We have 48 girls on our team. Everything they do has to be for the Indiana Tech logo and the brand and not for themselves.”

A USA Wrestling silver-certified coach who has spent plenty of summers coaching at the National Duals and in Fargo, Rademacher continues to evolve and innovate with every trip he takes and every conversation in which he engages.

With his peers, he is constantly exchanging and absorbing new ideas. He was even a member of the wedding party at the marriage of Life University coaches Ashley and Christian Flavin.

“I have friends like the Flavins; we started the same time, and we’ve grown to a friendship. Guys like Joe Norton who we are competing against … now I am in a group chat with him and a bunch of other coaches. I learn from them about how they run practice or show technique.”

And the conversations he has with his student-athletes? Those often take on more of a counseling role by nature, as Rademacher insists it is imperative coaches see themselves beyond the lens of just a wrestling technician with a whistle.

“They want someone to care about them,” he said of his student-athletes. “A lot come from not-the-best home life or family situations. Sometimes, as wrestlers, they’ve been in a corner not getting attention and were just allowed to exist. Now they get full coaching and their own team, which they’ve never had before.

“That is something that coaches can do is give them the opportunity to grow. The boys need the caring side of the coach as well too sometimes, but the girls need that.

“Be that stable space for them. If you provide that, they’ll open up. They need that outlet. It is part of your job as a coach. Have those conversations; help them navigate life.”

Rademacher hopes his most significant influence on them is their lifelong passion for and involvement with wrestling. He hopes they look back on their experience with fondness and remember the resilience wrestling teaches.

“We want our athletes to grow up as young women and love the sport and give back to it. So few of the early women’s wrestlers who came through are still involved; I want them to stay involved in some form or fashion.

“When things get challenging or high pressure, you have to stay calm and see through the hard part to figure out what the solution is.

“When I was fighting fires, I couldn’t just focus on the five feet in front of me but the 15 miles ahead. Ask yourself … how does your past and future help you deal with your current situation?”