Etching his name

How the worst athlete in his own family became one of the best in Douglas High School history

By BRENDAN BURNETT-KURIE

Reporter/Photographer

There are many things people know about Pierre Etchemendy.

They know he set a single season Douglas High School record with 2,025 rushing yards – the most by a Wyoming high school back since at least 2001.

They know he set a school record with 32 touchdowns in a season.

They know he set a single-game record with six touchdowns.

They know he’s a two-time individual state champion wrestler at 171 lbs.

They know he was a starter on back-to-back state champion football teams.

They know he finished second at state in the discus his junior year and has been a part of three top-four 4x400 relay teams.

They know he was class president of his freshman and sophomore years and treasurer his junior year.

The know he’s in the National Honor Society.

They know he is slated to play football at Chadron State College in the fall.

They know he’s had 18 years of unqualified successes.

There are many things people probably don’t know about Pierre Etchemendy.

They don’t know he spends his summers perfecting his Basque dancing in festivals. He even performed a Basque dance at Invesco field.

They don’t know he loves to braid horse reins.

They don’t know he enjoys settling down for an evening with a good C.J. Box mystery.

They don’t know he’s a history buff who loves watching American Pickers.

They don’t know he loves breaking in horses – his family has 15 on their cattle ranch 25 miles north of town – and calls Cowgirl, a 6-year-old paint horse, his own.

They don’t know that during track season he still takes his three-hour overnight shift during calving season.

They don’t know he enjoys leatherwork.

There are many things people have to say about Pierre Etchemendy. They’re all good.

“He’s what every coach dreams of,” wrestling coach Bob Bath says. “Somebody who has the talent and uses it and is a good leader and is just a good kid. You can always count on him. Those kids come along every once in awhile. It just makes it worth it sometimes.”

“When Pierre talks, people listen,” head football coach Jay Rhoades says. “He’s a really good combination of leadership by example – which I think is the best leadership someone can possess. He didn’t talk a lot. He wasn’t real verbal. But when he did, he was so effective. He is just that type of individual who is going to get things done.”

There are a few things you notice when talking to Pierre Etchemendy.

He’s soft spoken, with a quiet demeanor that belies his competitive nature. He’s a physical specimen, with 180 pounds of muscle tightly wrapping his six-foot frame.

And yet if one were to rank Pierre and his two siblings – older sister Elisa and younger brother Ty – based purely on athleticism (not drive, not determination, not leadership or IQ) he would probably rank third.

“Yes, I would definitely agree,” he says self-deprecatingly when asked this question. “Ty got the jumps and everything. He’s just a great athlete. Elisa is way good. She’s amazing.”

There are many records the Etchemendys own.

By the time Pierre reached Douglas Middle School, Elisa was already the school’s record holder in the discus. Years later, Ty would set the school triple jump record. In the middle, there was Pierre and his eighth grade wrestling season.

In his final year of middle school wrestling, Pierre finished 25-0 with 24 pins, both school records.

“We all got our names up there,” Pierre says.

That wrestling season followed Pierre’s first season of football. That’s right, the man who will require nuclear armageddon not to become a Douglas football legend, didn’t even play until eighth grade.

He was planning on playing in seventh grade but injured his foot in an unfortunate accident involving his bicycle and a loading dock a week before the season started. At first, he thought it was sprained so he hobbled around for a week before finally acquiescing and heading to the doctor, where it was discovered he had broken his foot in seven places.

“It made me want to play more when I broke my foot,” he says.

Starting late wasn’t necessarily a detriment to his burgeoning career, however.

“If a person is very athletic, it doesn’t really matter when they start playing a particular sport,” Rhoades says. “Sometimes that may even enhance them going further because they don’t have bad habits. They just use their athleticism and you can nurture that into a football player. That’s where we were with Pierre.”

Pierre still remembers his first varsity game. It was late his freshman year in the midst of a snowstorm. Ryan Adams, then a sophomore, comes sprinting off the field, ripping his soaked gloves off his hands. He tosses them to Pierre, tells him to go in.

“I didn’t have a clue what I was doing,” he says.

Still, he crouches at his linebacker position, staring across the line through the thickly falling snow at the opposing running back. The ball is snapped, Pierre starts running. It’s a pass to the flats. Pierre is there. He tackles the receiver out of bounds. He has made his first tackle.

“Pierre’s name was definitely one of the up-and-coming freshmen that were talked about by a lot of different people,” Rhoades, who had just arrived as the new head coach, says. “Once I saw him and how athletic he looked, it was exciting to think about what he could do.”

There are few things more impressive in the annals of Douglas sports than Pierre Etchemendy’s senior season.

In only 11 games, Pierre ran for more than 2,000 yards (2,025 to be exact). He never ran for less than 113 in a game and topped 200 yards five times. He had at least two touchdowns in every game. Over the course of the season he averaged 10 yards per carry. He also led the team in tackles.

“It was huge,” Rhoades says of Pierre’s 2009 performance. “There were games that I didn’t think he had a lot of yards because he didn’t carry the ball a lot and he had over 200. Ten yards a carry? That’s unbelievable at any level. That’s a feat in itself.”

His junior year, Pierre went into the summer in a platoon with Cody Bohlander as the team’s running back duo. But just a few games into the season Bohlander was named the starting back and received the bulk of the carries. Pierre finished that year with 400 yards rushing.

“I have no doubt he would have shattered the all-time rushing record and held it for many years to come,” Rhoades says of the possibility of Pierre starting for two years. “He very easily could have been our main back his junior year. With Bohlander’s athleticism, even though Pierre was a more natural running back, Cody was such a great athlete we had to keep him on the field. What’s great about Pierre is he accepted that role. He just wanted to produce in whatever capacity he could.”

Going into his senior season, Pierre knew he was following in the footsteps of three great running backs. The Jay Rhoades era had already produced three straight 1,000-yard backs: Payden McIntyre, Scott Boner and Bohlander.

“You’re the next person and you’re expected to be good,” Pierre says. “When I was a freshman I was scared to death of the big guys. Sophomore year, I loosened up a little bit. Junior year, I realized I could play with these guys.”

Junior year would also be when Pierre helped the Bearcat football team to its first state championship in 30 years. It would be the first of four state titles for Pierre.

There are very few wrestlers in Bob Bath’s career that rank with Pierre Etchemendy.

“I’ve had a lot of good talent come through here,” Bath says. “I hate to try to compare him to somebody else. Has he been one of the best? Yeah, he’s been one of the best.”

Pierre’s wrestling acumen was first displayed in fifth grade when he won state championships in Greco and freestyle during USA wrestling.

“I knew back then that he had some pretty good skills,” Bath says. “As a little kid he was pretty good, but nothing like when he was in high school. He developed into a great wrestler. His work ethic and his hard work helped him to get where he is.”

His freshman year, Pierre went 32-18 in the 140 lb. weight class, finishing fourth at state. The next year he moved up to 152 lbs. and went 40-11, again taking fourth at state. Pierre was slotted at 171 lbs. as a junior, improving his record to 37-4 and capturing his first state championship. All three years the Bearcats finished second at state.

Senior year arrived and once again Pierre was penciled in at 171 lbs. He proceeded to go 40-1 and win another state title. But this time his teammates joined him in the celebration as the Bearcats pulled off an incredible come-from-behind upset of Powell to win their first team title in 11 years.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been that high on everything,” Pierre says. “The adrenaline was just pumping through you. Usually, it goes down after awhile, but with six matches in a row it just stayed.”

There is little doubt that Pierre Etchemendy will succeed at Chadron State College.

“He’s going to fit in great at Chadron,” Rhoades, a Chadron State graduate, says. “They have built their success on guys like Pierre; good kids from Wyoming and small schools. I think if he sticks with it and continues to mature and build himself physically through their weight program, he’ll have an outstanding career at Chadron. I was very happy to see him go there. Chadron is a great place to go to school.”

But like many of his fellow two-sport athletes at DHS, choosing a school is only part of the question. The other side of the equation asks ‘What sport will you play?’

For Pierre, the choice wasn’t hard.

“At times, wrestling has been amazing. But it’s not something I would want to do in college,” he says. “Football, I have a lot of fun doing it. Football, for me, is just a feeling. It’s a lot of fun.”

So Pierre will likely red-shirt next year, then take the field as an Eagle at either outside linebacker or safety.

“I went down to visit and met the football players,” he says. “They just seemed like a family and that triggered my mind back to this year’s team. I wanted to go from a team that’s real close to another team that’s bonded. They’re all good kids. It’s a small town. It’s a good fit for me.”

While at Chadron he plans on getting a business degree in design technology and hopes to eventually go into construction management or back into ranching, possibly even taking over the family ranch from his father, George.

There are many stories about Pierre Etchemendy. One sums him up the best.

Pierre is sprawled across the grass of Bearcat Stadium his junior year, stretching before a game against Rawlins. A couple Outlaws mosey across the 50-yard line and start walking through the Bearcat stretching lines, a blatant display of intimidation. But Pierre won’t be intimidated. Nor will he be disrespectful.

He gets up, walks over to the Rawlins players and says calmly in his soft voice, “We don’t take that.”

On the first play of the game he sacks the quarterback.