Before practice, he laces up his wrestling shoes and starts getting loose. He jumps around, swinging his arms back and forth, and goes through all of the motions any young wrestler would naturally go through.

But Assistant Wrestling Coach Dave Auble is not as young as he feels. As a matter of fact, he’ll celebrate his 71st birthday next week.

After he gets ready, Auble walks around the wrestling room observing every wrestler, watching every move each one makes. He even gets down on the mat with athletes to correct poor technique.

“The guy knows every move possible,” junior Willie Horwath said. “If there’s any situations that anybody gets into, he’s the type of guy to go to because of his experience with coaching wrestling and just his overall knowledge.”

Not only is Auble able to move around like people half his age, but he also has a storied history of credentials to back up his wrestling knowledge.

Contending at 123 pounds, Auble wrestled at Ithaca High School in the 1950s. He eventually went on to star at Cornell University, winning NCAA Championships in 1959 and 1960, and he won Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association titles in 1958, 1959 and 1960.

With all of his experience and success at the collegiate level, Auble went on to compete in the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Unfortunately for Auble, though, the Olympics were bittersweet for him.

While competing for the bronze medal, he lost to a two-time Olympic champion from Japan, placing him fourth overall. Though unable to come through in the bronze-medal match, Auble had previously beaten some of the athletes who placed ahead of him.

“It was an emotional experience,” Auble said. “Of course it was exciting, too, because of just being a part of it and all of the things that go with it, like associating with all the other athletes and building relationships that last to this day.”

Now, more than 40 years later, he is in his second go-around as an assistant for the Bombers. His first stint was during the team’s glory years of NCAA Championships. He helped the Blue and Gold win it all in 1989, 1990 and 1994. In 1989, Wrestling USA Magazine named him Division III Assistant Coach of the Year.

Before returning to South Hill in 2004, Auble served as the head coach at Campbell and at UCLA and as the assistant coach at Cornell, Michigan State and North Carolina State.

Head Coach Marty Nichols, whom Auble coached at the college during the ’89 and ’90 championship seasons, said Auble’s many years in wrestling have had a valuable impact for the Bombers.

“[He provides] the knowledge that he has — the experience, knowing how to win and just all the little things that are needed in the program to make it not just successful, but to make it a program that can win a national championship,” Nichols said.

Auble and Nichols’ relationship has remained strong throughout the years they have known each other. In 1996, Auble, then an assistant at North Carolina State University, recommended Nichols for the head coaching job at Ithaca. Then, this season, Nichols was able to pull some strings and raise enough money to give Auble a full-time coaching job.

It’s that type of respect between the two that has stayed true for more than 20 years.

“I’ve learned most of my coaching philosophy ... based on a lot of the things that he taught me when he used to coach here,” Nichols said.

Auble said his wrestling prowess and expertise is a direct result of teachings from his coach, Bill Layton, from his high school days.

Auble said he considered Layton a master coach who nurtured his wrestlers in such a way that they could one day become coaches.

Now with decades of experience in the sport, Auble is able to pass his wisdom onto a new generation of athletes. Junior heavyweight Joe Goetz said he admires everything about the coach.

“Coach Auble is probably one of the greatest coaches I’ve ever met,” Goetz said. “His knowledge of the sport of wrestling — tremendous.”

Auble said with his mastery of the sport, he has an obligation to impart his knowledge onto his pupils.

“It becomes part of you naturally,” Auble said. “It’s a part of your approach to life, and you just kind of feel like you want to give back some of that expertise that’s been passed on to you.”