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Alliance for the Arts hosts 1st annual Asian Winter Fest
The Alliance for the Arts presented the first annual Asian Winter Fest in Fort Myers on Saturday.
The sport of wrestling transformed Obenson Blanc’s life. Now, coaching the sport is his life’s work. Blanc is in his second season as the head coach of the North Dakota State wrestling team.
“Something I’ve wanted for a very long time once I got into the coaching profession,” Blanc explained. “I never thought this is where I would’ve been as a high school kid in Naples, Florida.”
Blanc became a local legend in wrestling at Lely High School. That’s where he first picked up the sport as a sophomore, in a week’s time. His first practice was on Wednesday. Then, on Friday, he competed in his first JV match.
“It was my first competition in organized sports ever,” Blanc said.
In Blanc’s senior season at Lely, he went undefeated on his way to a state championship. After he was done competing at the collegiate and international level, he stayed in the sport as a coach.
“I just wanted to help people like I knew whatever I did any profession I wanted to help people,” Blanc said. “And my high school coach Jeff Mustari had such a big impact on me and I think that’s really a part of it as well.”
Even though the Bison posted a 3-11 record in Blanc’s first season as head coach, he considers it one of his favorite seasons of coaching.
“I truly value learning and trying to be better and that’s probably one of my favorite parts of anything that I do is growth,” Blanc explained. “And last year, I learned a lot on how to coach a new generation of athletes and learning to meet the student athlete where they’re at and create crafting a plan to get them where they need to be.”
From moving to the United States from Haiti as a kid to now a Division I coach, Blacn said the sport changed his life, “it opened my eyes to effort right? Effort. And from that point on I tried to put effort into everything I did.”