By: E.Goldman/Boxing & Wrestling Editor
Kerry McCoy, one of the most successful heavyweight wrestlers in American history, was named Thursday as head wrestling coach at Stanford, a Div. I college located in Palo Alto, Calif.
For the past five seasons he had been an assistant coach at Lehigh in Bethlehem, PA, as well as Director of Wrestling and head coach of the Lehigh Valley Athletic Club.
‘I am really excited,’ he wrote us by e-mail. ‘I am really looking forward to the opportunity to become a part of such a great University and Athletic Department. Even though I am very sad to be leaving Bethlehem and the Lehigh Wrestling family, I know this is a great opportunity.’
McCoy had tremendous success at all levels of wrestling. He was a 1992 New York State high school champion at Longwood High School, where he also was senior class president and played the cello. Upon enrolling in Penn State University, he was a two-time NCAA champion, winning that honor in 1994 and 1997. In 1997, his senior year, he also was awarded the annual Hodge Trophy by W.I.N. Magazine for being the most dominant college wrestler of the year.
After graduating Penn State with a degree in marketing, he continued to find success in freestyle wrestling. He was a U.S. national champion from 2000 to 2004. He also won the U.S. Olympic Trials in 2000 and 2004, and the U.S. World Team Trials in 1998 and 2001-2003.
His high point in international competition came in 2003, when he finished second in the world, making it to the finals before many of his hometown fans at Madison Square Garden. He was also a two-time Olympian, finishing fifth in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and seventh in the 2004 Athens Olympics. After that, McCoy, who turned 30 last August 2, retired from active competition to focus on coaching.
At Stanford, McCoy will have some rebuilding to do. In the 2003-2004 season, Stanford finished with a dual meet record of 10-4. At the 2004 NCAA Championships, Stanford finished 19th, with 157-pounder Matt Gentry winning that school’s first-ever NCAA individual title. But in the 2004-05 season, Stanford fell to 5-7-1 in dual meets, and 37th at the NCAA Championships. Gentry, wrestling in his final season at Stanford, also fell to ninth place. A total of five senior wrestlers from this past season have finished their Stanford college careers, so the new coach has his work cut out for him.
Wrestling Gear
