SCMAT Exclusive Wrestling Article 11-13-07

Do you need to be a State Champ to achieve coaching success?
Kyle Kimrey 2004.jpg 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. ------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------------ 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). ------------------------------------------------------------- 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). ------------------------------------------------------------------ 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