Joe Norton, men’s AND women’s wrestling head coach

Two teams, 48 athletes, nine assistant coaches, two schedules, 80+ hours a week. Joe Norton lives a busy life.

Joe Norton, head coach of both men’s and women’s wrestling at North Central, brought this life upon himself. He pushed for a women’s wrestling team at North Central after already being the head coach of the men’s team for five years. All in the same year he decided he was going to get married.

Some would call Norton crazy, but to those around him, he is just driven to succeed.

“Joe wakes up every morning looking to get better, and he preaches that every day. He’s the reason the program is reaching new levels of successes,” said Vince Pizzo, third-year assistant coach under Norton and former wrestler for him.

The men’s wrestling program has been taken to new heights under Norton.

When Norton took over in 2014-2015 season the cardinals hadn’t won a CCIW championship since the 2009-2010 season and had a dual team record of 16-23 over the past three seasons.

Since then under Norton’s leadership, the Cardinals have a 39-28 dual team record including a 20-4 mark over the past two seasons. The cardinals have also won two straight CCIW championships, and are favored to win a third this season.

“He keeps a list of all the CCIW duals over the last five seasons on the wall right next to his desk. It marks the team’s improvement in their CCIW dual record since Joe has taken over. The team has won 12 straight CCIW duals, and Joe never wants to lose one again,” said Mike Bikulcius, a second-year assistant coach and former wrestler under Norton.

Norton’s success led him to take on the new challenge of women’s wrestling at North Central as well.

Only time will tell if the women’s program will live up to the success Norton has achieved with the men’s program, but the early results are good as the cardinals have a 1-0 record and Norton was able to recruit the 9^th best-recruiting class in the nation before the team ever began competition.

However, Norton attributes the success on the mat to the skills he strives to teach through it.

“You win by working as part of a team, developing leadership skills, taking direction well, being coachable, and being accountable to yourself and others. The turnaround the program has seen simply means that we are going a good job of teaching these skills,” said Norton.

 

These skills are what mean the most to Norton, not the success on the mat. He puts forth an academic goal just as, if not more, important than the athletic goal every season.

“We have a measurable athletic and academic goal every season for both teams: win a national championship and have over a 3.0 team GPA. But the overall goal is to develop young men and women into leaders that will be successful in life,” said Norton.

Norton has created a program designed to create a better person and it has led to success.

Ten national championship qualifiers, 10 individual conference champions, two team conference championships, five All-Americans, 17 Academic All-Americans.

But the number that means the most is the countless young men and women that have become champions of life through Joe Norton.