SCMAT Exclusive Wrestling Article 11-13-07
Do you need to be a State Champ to achieve coaching success?
I'm a factual, historical kind of writer, so let me get straight to the details of this article ...
We have had 1,207 State Champions in 39 years of SC wrestling. If you read our 1st article, we could calculate
that about 2%-3% of all wrestlers trying out for the sport in SC have made it to become state champ.
Give or take a few percentage points, that's a tough road to battle to get to the top!
Out of those 1,207 wrestlers, we have 1,183 Coaches names associated with those champs, leaving us
24 coaches short of a full house. 24 names I'll track down before the history book gets published.
Only 250 Coaches have coached those 1,207 State Champs (not counting the missing 24), so that leaves a lot of
coaches with multiple state champs. If you are curious about the coaches that make up our list of 250,
check back in next Tuesday, November 20 and we'll go over the list and see who makes it in the Top 20.
This article is intending to answer the question "Do you need to be a State Champ to achieve coaching success?"
After pondering the announcement in the off-season that Kyle Kimrey would take over the Irmo wrestling program,
I decided to do some research and see if a 3X State Champion like Kyle Kimrey (pictured above) had an advantage
over other former wrestlers that had fewer state titles (or none). The results were interesting, and possibly
supports a theory --- wrestlers from SC that become coaches, don't need a state title from their prep career
to be an exceptional coach. Even though we looked at coaching individual state champions, the team state championships
are almost the same in review. And, believe it or not, often out of state wrestlers that come to SC to coach still
prove to the theory that their prep careers did not need a state title to be successful at the coaching level.
Bottom line, it seems to come down to the "will to win" and coach winners. Final prep career losses sometimes
are more of a driver to future success than we realize.
Here are some breakouts of interest (and unfortunately did not include all home-grown SC coaches. I could only pull
coaches that wrestled and placed in the top 4 of state. And, I only put coaches in one category (the highest applicable).
Coaches that won a state title in SC as a wrestler,
and coached a SC wrestler to a state title.
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Tim Wash - Coached 24 state champs, Was a State Champ
Kevin Knoerr - Coached 15 state champs, Was a State Champ
Albert Spalviero - Coached 12 state champs, Was a State Champ
Russ Howard - Coached 11 state champs, Was a 2x State Champ
Chris Strickland - Coached 4 state champs, Was a State Champ
Jimmy Griffin - Coached 3 state champs, Was a 3x State Champ
Mark Reeve - Coached 3 state champs, Was a 3x State Champ
Jason Valek - Coached 2 state champs, Was a State Champ
Tommy Bell - Coached 2 state champs, Was a State Champ
Tyrone Talbert - Coached 2 state champs, Was a State Champ
Chuck Jones - Coached 1 state champ, Was a 2x State Champ
Derek Strobel - Coached 1 state champ, Was a State Champ
Freddie Kelley - Coached 1 state champ, Was a 2x State Champ
Matt Crain - Coached 1 state champ, Was a State Champ
Rasheem Naloms - Coached 1 state champ, Was a State Champ
Coaches that placed in state (2nd,3rd,4th) in SC as a wrestler,
and coached a SC wrestler to a state title.
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Quincy Riley - Coached 26 state champs
Nathan Day - Coached 22 state champs
Chad Singleton - Coached 8 state champs
Chris Brock - Coached 8 state champs
David Maas - Coached 7 state champs
Mark Tillotson - Coached 7 state champs
John Thompson - Coached 6 state champs
Martin Williams - Coached 5 state champs
Allen Crenshaw - Coached 4 state champs
David Cooper - Coached 3 state champs
George Dixon - Coached 3 state champs
Quay Scott - Coached 2 state champs
Greg Abercrombie - Coached 2 state champs
Stephen Sutusky - Coached 2 state champs
Mike Newton - Coached 1 state champ
Bernard Parker - Coached 1 state champ
Clark Crump - Coached 1 state champ
Eddie Cook - Coached 1 state champ
Matt Anderson - Coached 1 state champ
Coaches that won a state title in SC as a wrestler,
and coached a SC wrestler to a state placement (2nd,3rd,4th).
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Pernell Brockington - Was a 3x State Champ
Jim Wiles - Was a State Champ
Jody Truesdale - Was a State Champ
Milton Glover - Was a State Champ
Robert Hemingway - Was a State Champ
Russell Gray - Was a State Champ
Willie Craven - Was a State Champ
Coaches that placed in state (2nd,3rd,4th) in SC as a wrestler,
and coached a SC wrestler to a state placement (2nd,3rd,4th).
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Bernard Durham
Chad Cox
Charles Smith
Chris Miller
Daniel Westmoreland
James Kratzer
Mike Bridges
Rob Sawtelle
Steve Watson
T.J. Bedell
Tom Borrelli
Treva Lee
So, this season should be interesting to watch as new coaches begin a journey of
coaching one state champion at a time.
Hopefully in this SCMAT exclusive article for 2007-2008 the history of SC wrestling is defining itself as
an exciting past with a future awaiting more greatness.
These historical articles at SCMAT will hopefully provide accurate facts though we may always have missed
some data at some point. If you notice a correction, addition or just want to comment please send a reply
to scmat@hotmail.com
thanks,
Mark Buford