WHAT HONES YOU SHOW | EP. #24: CARRINGTON BANKS ON TRANSITIONING FROM FIGHTER TO HEAD COACH

Carrington Banks is an NCAA All-American wrestler, a Division III Hall of Famer, and a 10-2 MMA veteran with appearances in the LFA, Bellator, and on The Ultimate Fighter. He is also the head coach of UFC bantamweight contender Cory Sandhagen and the founder of Tiger Beetle gym in Colorado. In Episode 23 of What Hones You, hosts Trevor Wittman and Luke Caudillo sit down with Banks for a direct conversation about what it actually takes to coach at the highest level: where the discipline comes from, what it costs, and why the wrestling mentality runs through all of it.

---

Coaches as Father Figures

Banks traces his coaching identity back to the men who shaped him. Through wrestling at Wartberg College and coaching under Jim Miller, a coach who built a national championship program from a losing record, Banks developed a model for what lasting influence looks like. His coaches were not just instructors. They were father figures: demanding, consistent, and willing to be honest when it was not easy.

"When somebody helps you, you help them back. That was just the culture of wrestling."

That culture of reciprocity became the foundation of how Banks approaches every athlete he works with. It is not a strategy. It is how he was built.

---

What a Head Coach Actually Does

Wittman is direct about something most people in the sport do not say plainly: Carrington Banks is Cory Sandhagen's head coach. Wittman is the assistant. The distinction matters because head coaching is not just about technique. It is about running the room, managing pre-fight logistics, keeping the corner aligned, and making sure every athlete on the team has what they need, without losing focus on any one of them.

Banks keeps his circle deliberately small. He has turned down high-profile coaching opportunities because taking them would pull time away from the athletes he has already committed to. That discipline, the ability to say no at the top of the sport, is the standard he holds himself to.

---

Building from Scratch: Tiger Beetle

Tiger Beetle is less than a year old. Banks has been through this before, at least in wrestling, where he watched Jim Miller build Wartberg College's program from a losing record to a nationally recognized dynasty by starting with one believer and building from there. That blueprint is what Banks is replicating in MMA.

Two fighters out of Tiger Beetle have already competed on Dana White's Contender Series. Tom, a motorcycle builder who did not look like a fighter, landed a UFC contract after taking eight shots from a heavy puncher and finishing the fight. Alex entered her bout at 60-to-1 underdog odds and won. Both outcomes say something specific about what Banks does in a gym.

---

The First Punch and What Comes After

One of the more honest threads in the episode is a question Wittman puts to both Banks and Caudillo: what was it like to take your first real punch? The answers are different in texture but land in the same place. Banks, fresh out of college wrestling and training at Rock Gym in Waterloo, Iowa, drove home in silence after his first session. The conversation in his head was not panic. It was the realization that wrestling pedigree only gets you so far when someone is throwing at your face.

His conclusion: go back. The fighters who become durable are the ones who learn to make decisions inside the chaos rather than waiting for it to stop.

"You go home, you cry, and you show up the next day. That is the key to becoming great."

---

Family Is the Hardest Part

Banks identifies the part of high-level coaching that rarely gets discussed publicly: managing the families of the athletes he works with. After a loss, the fighter knows how to process it. The mother in the front row does not. She is not running game tape. She is watching her son or daughter get hurt and wondering whether this is the version of them that comes home permanently.

Banks does not have a clean answer to it. He says directly that it does not get easier with experience. It gets harder, because he cares more and because he has more losses behind him to reference. That honesty is what makes the conversation worth having.

---