Vandal wrestling club rises up from the mat, steps onto the podium

Before his freshman year at University of Idaho, Keven Martinez spent a lot of time doing online research.

He wasn’t looking for the best place in Moscow for coffee or even for a campus map — he was trying to rebuild the UIdaho wrestling sport club from 300 miles away.

“I wasn’t planning on attending U of I — I’d never even been to Moscow before — but my girlfriend got a scholarship to come here and I wanted to be here, too,” said Martinez, originally from Caldwell. “I wrestled in high school and wanted to continue. I found out there was a wrestling club here, but they were mostly just practicing once a week — no competitions. I contacted the person running it and said I had a few ideas for making the team better. He told me to run with it. So, I did.”

Almost two years later, Martinez has turned the club, a student-led organization that provides opportunities for competitive athletics, teamwork, leadership and community, into a bona fide team ... a team that produced their first All-American at the 2026 National Collegiate Wrestling Association Championships.

“At competitions, other teams are surprised that Keven is coaching us while he’s wrestling,” said James Greene, who earned the All-American designation in the 184-pound class. “He’s put in the work. He’s busy in class, he’s wrestling and he’s our leader. He brought this program up and is the reason we’re doing so well.”

Stocking the shelves

Martinez wasn’t focused on winning right away. He just wanted to compete. But first he needed more wrestlers that were willing to commit to building a foundation for success.

Of the 28 athletes currently on the wrestling club’s roster, there are two juniors and no seniors. The other 26 are freshmen and sophomores recruited by Martinez.

To build his team, Martinez used Trackwrestling to look for high school wrestlers in the region who might be interested in wrestling at college … and who were following U of I on social media.

“Keven reached out to me the summer before my freshman year,” said Ridge Kehr, a sophomore from La Grande, Oregon. “I don’t even think he was on campus at that point. I thought he was just a coach because he messaged me from the Idaho Wrestling Instagram account.”

After winning a state title during his senior year in high school, Kehr wasn’t thinking about wrestling in college. He was set to attend U of I because he was interested in the College of Natural Resources.

After initially speaking with Martinez, Kehr reached out to a friend who wrestled the year before at U of I. He heard the experience was underwhelming. However, the combination of his competitive itch and Martinez’s sales pitch about rebuilding the program proved hard to resist.

“We met on campus and started practicing,” Kehr said. “Practices were tough because we had to take any time we could find, which was usually 6 a.m. or 9 p.m. We lost a few wrestlers because of that, but we found out who was interested in really building a team.”

Martinez eventually upgraded the practice situation by making a deal with U of I’s Navy and Marine Corps ROTC program.

“I saw a video of someone doing martial arts in their space at Targhee Hall,” Martinez said. “I spoke to them because that space was the size we needed for our growing team. We brought in some equipment for the room and said they could use it for grappling in exchange for some practice times.”

For Kehr, seeing Martinez making constant improvements to and for his team sold him on staying with the group.

“Creating something bigger than yourself — that’s something my parents have always talked about,” he said. “I think we’re doing that with the wrestling club and that feels pretty cool.”

Preparing for the future

Greene, a freshman who wrestled four years for Moscow High School, was impressed with the quantity and quality of competitions the club had during his first year, noting they are often matched up against NCAA Division II-level wrestlers.

“I was surprised at the number of tournaments we had,” he said. “The competition was a lot better than I expected. And then to be able to go nationals was huge.”

Not having a blueprint to follow, or even any matches scheduled, Martinez started making calls to other coaches during his first year to learn how to arrange them. And, in the beginning, that meant quite a bit of traveling.

“Most coaches said, ‘can you come over here on this date for a match?’,” Martinez said. “So, we did that a lot and molded a schedule together that way. Then we started working on tournaments.”

Tournaments were easy to enter but required something the club didn’t have a lot of — money. Although they do receive funding from the Student Recreation Center — each sport club receives a portion of dedicated student fees through U of I’s Recreation and Wellbeing program — Martinez realized they would need additional funds for things like entry fees and equipment upgrades.

He found Scoreboard Fundraising and Vertical Raise, online platforms that let club members send donation links to family and friends. Those funds have helped the team enter tournaments, travel and create wrestling club gear.

While acknowledging the work he’s put in to help elevate the club’s stature, Martinez, majoring in recreation, sport and tourism management, doesn’t want to get pinned down as being the program’s savior. He, like Kehr and the rest of the team, simply want to leave it in better shape than they found it.

“I helped set the foundation, but it’s up to all of the wrestlers to make the most of their opportunity,” he said. “I’m showing the guys how to keep it going after I’m gone. I want to be sitting on my couch someday watching TV and hear about UIdaho wrestling and how far it’s going.”