By the time Thom Ortiz was a senior at Sunnyside High School in1985, the Blue Devils’ wrestling program — summer team, freshman team, JV team, varsity team — had more than 300 young wrestlers. That was about triple the participation numbers of Tucson’s strongest football programs of the 1980s, Amphi and Sahuaro.
At Sunnyside, winning begat interest. Winning begat more winning.
But even as coach Don Klostreich’s powerhouses won eight consecutive state championships from 1981-88, it took a while for outsiders to recognize the Blue Devils’ unprecedented success.
The Star and Tucson Citizen regularly misspelled Ortiz name — it’s Thom, not Tom — even though he won back-to-back state championships and went 105-2 in his Sunnyside career.
It wasn’t until Ortiz became a NCAA champion and helped ASU to the 1988 national championship that his hometown newspapers began to spell his name correctly.
It was Sunnyside’s 1984 team that really put the Blue Devils on the map. Klostreich’s team set a state record by winning six individual state championships — Ortiz, Mike Moreno, George Soto, Rene Nunez, Fabian Cota and John Bracy all won their weight classes — which was the record for big schools in Arizona until the Blue Devils won eight titles this season.
What’s more, Sunnyside scored a state-record 199 points in the state finals that season, which was more points combined than the second, third and fourth place teams had combined.
Rival coach John Mulay of Pueblo High told the Star: “With the power that Sunnyside has, a lot of junior college teams would be hard-pressed to beat them.”
The ’84 Blue Devils continued a dual meet winning streak that would grow to 123 consecutive matches from 1976-92. Ortiz might’ve been the best of that era, although future ASU All-American Eddie Urbano was similarly honored.
Sunnyside’s climb to the pinnacle of Arizona prep wrestling in 1984 was the culmination of Klostreich’s first 12 years at the school. He left his position as football coach at Phoenix’s Carl Hayden High School to join Blue Devils football coach Paul Petty’s staff — they had coached together before — and quickly put together a state power. Sunnyside finished second in the state championships in 1975, 1976 and 1977, before winning a first state title in 1979.
That was a period in which Ortiz became something of a wrestling prodigy, going undefeated in age-group wrestling programs at Drexel Elementary School and Apollo Junior High School. By the time Ortiz graduated from Sunnyside, he had won wrestling championships in Bolivia, Peru, Florida, Nebraska and California.
After Ortiz led the Blue Devils to the ‘84 state title, Klostreich spoke of the difficulty of winning every year.
“It’s pretty hard to keep stretching the gap,” he told the Star. “We know one day it’s going to come to an end. But it’s not going to come from not working hard enough.”
Klostreich quit his Sunnyside job at the 1989 season after a feud with the school’s administration. He resumed his coaching career in Yuma, but the winning didn’t stop at Sunnyside. Coaches Richard Sanchez, Bobby DeBerry and Anthony Leon have combined to win 26 state titles since 1990, giving the school a state-record 35 championships.
Sunnyside produced an assembly line of NCAA All-Americans, including brothers Nate and Nick Gallick, Erik Larkin and now Penn State’s Roman Bravo-Young.
After helping ASU win the ’88 national championship, Ortiz earned a degree in finance and worked as a stockbroker, but soon left to become the top assistant coach at perennial college power Iowa State. In 2001, he was hired to be the head coach at Arizona State; over seven seasons, he won three Pac-10 championships. He left ASU in 2009; he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2013.
It didn’t mean his wrestling days were over. At 46, Ortiz became an MMA fighter, earning the nickname “El Viejo.”
Ortiz established the World Fighting Federation with partner Al Fuentes in Tucson (WWFMA.com). The organization prepared young adults for professional fights, including the televised UFC shows on pay-per-view.
Ortiz has since coached mixed martial arts and wrestling to young athletes in the Mesa area.
