Merton Gabara knows all about what it takes to be successful in high school wrestling.

As a grappler for Alpena High School in the early 1970s, Merton Gabara had a standout career for the Wildcats, going 102-7-1 in two seasons with a Class A state title win in 1974.

Now more than 40 years later, Gabara is hoping to impart some of his wrestling wisdom as coach of his alma mater.

It’s different, very different. It’s just that a lot of things have changed since I wrestled. It’s been about 40 or so years, so a lot of things have changed,” Gabara said. “Being a wrestler and not a coach is different. It’s a challenge.”

Gabara takes over for Matt Hepburn who led the program for the previous three seasons. Gabara is more than familiar with the sport, but he took the position at the urging of his family and to try and keep Alpena’s program afloat.

The program was in danger of being dropped last season until Hepburn returned and it teetered in a similar spot this year until Gabara took over.

Former Alpena wrestler R.J. Centala is helping Gabara out a few days a week to work with some of Alpena’s wrestlers in the lighter weight classes.

“I want them to win, but I also want them to have fun. I had fun when I was in school. I enjoyed it. Right to this day I still communicate with a lot of my old teammates,” Gabara said. “I’ve good a great bunch of kids, I just hope next year we get the numbers up.”

In Gabara’s first season, he’ll have a roster of 14 to coach up, including a handful of seniors. Those seniors include seniors Matthew Barrett and Wyatt Romero and sophomore Mason Bray. Barrett and Bray should be mainstays in the 145-162-pound range and Romero will give the Wildcats an anchor in the bigger weight classes.

With a young, up-and-coming team that’s eager to learn, Gabara is looking for continued to improvement from his team from week to week.

The Wildcats got saw their first live wrestling action on Wednesday during a quad in Gaylord.

“Some of them have improved so much, it’s unbelievable,” Gabara said.

Editor’s Note: At press time, a team wrestling photo was not available. The News will try to run a team photo in a future edition.