<p>Tina Tonte started to watch a movie with her two youngest sons recently when, almost immediately, a musical number appeared on the screen.</p><p>Knowing her husband’s love of a well-choreographed song and dance, Tonte, completely undeterred by the groans of the 11- and 9-year-olds in the audience, turned the movie off.</p><p>“Jim would love this,” she thought to herself. “We’ll wait until we can all watch it together.”</p><p>Now 56, Jim Tonte is a paradox. The first-year Franklin wrestling coach, a man who guided four of Indiana’s last nine state championship teams, is a marshmallow in the best possible sense.</p>[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]<p>“The thing that would surprise people about my husband is that he is very sensitive and very romantic,” said Tina, who has been married to Jim since July 1997. “Jim grew up watching ‘West Side Story,’ ‘Oliver’ and ‘The Sound of Music.’ He loves his musicals.”</p><p>In July, longtime Grizzly Cubs coach Bob Hasseman announced he was retiring from teaching and coaching. Big shoes to fill, to be sure, though the arrival of Tonte a few weeks later softened the shock of Hasseman’s somewhat unexpected departure after 33 seasons.</p><p>Tonte, a 1981 graduate of Southport High School, had worked his way up the coaching ladder — one year as a Southport assistant preceding two seasons as Tri-West’s head coach. He was an assistant three seasons at Ben Davis and then worked two years as head coach at Connersville (1993-95). Tonte’s 19-year run at Perry Meridian included three consecutive team titles (2011-13) and numerous individual state champions.</p><p>For good measure, Tonte led Warren Central to a state team championship in 2016, the first of his four seasons with the Warriors.</p><p>Matt Schoettle was Tonte’s assistant all 19 seasons at Perry Meridian. He said his former boss’s formula for success isn’t complicated.</p><p>"Jim’s work ethic is second to none. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s phenomenal," said Schoettle, who is now Perry Meridian’s head coach. "The older he gets, and he’s still not slowing down. He gets the kids to buy in, and after you’ve won so much, it gets easier to get them to buy in."</p><p>Growing up as the fourth of Robert and Marlene Tonte’s five children, Tonte fancied himself a better baseball player and distance runner than he did a wrestler. By his freshman year, he began establishing himself on the mat.</p><p>As a Southport senior, Tonte won the 138-pound weight class at the Bloomington South Semistate, qualifying him for the first state meet held inside Market Square Arena. Tonte battled a nasty flu bug the week of state and didn’t place. He then wrestled at the University of Indianapolis before knee surgery as a junior appeared to end his college career.</p><p>Tonte used the misfortune as a sign to get started on his coaching. Nonetheless, at 28 he used his medical redshirt in order to wrestle at UIndy as a senior. That same spring, he was a member of the Greyhounds’ baseball squad as an outfielder.</p><p>Even today, Tonte said the knee injury, emotionally and physically painful as it was, is what jump-started his coaching career.</p><p>“Honestly, I hated losing that senior year and all that, but looking back, it’s the reason I’m where I’m at,” he said. “I don’t know if I would’ve gone into coaching.”</p><p>Tonte uses his large collection of state championship rings (a coach receives one for a team or individual state champion) to help motivate current and future Grizzly Cub wrestlers. His efforts are poured into every level of Franklin’s program down to early elementary wrestlers.</p><p>And though Tonte isn’t originally from Johnson County, his better half is (the former Tina Teike is a 1992 Center Grove graduate), providing him additional motivation to one day lead Franklin to the summit for the first time in school history.</p><p>“I obviously want to win a state title here. That’s the goal,” Tonte said. “I also wanted to bring my family to the area my wife was raised in. I think this community has a lot to offer. Bringing something that positive to this community that we’re now part of would mean a lot.</p><p>“It would be nice to know that we had some kind of impact on the people that we’re surrounded by. That’s all I ever want to do in coaching is have an influence in somebody’s life to make it positive for them down the road. To have that kind of impact on kids and on the community with a state championship, that would be pretty special.”</p>
