Getting his shot

PALMER — For years, Dave Booth has looked forward to the opportunity to be the head coach of a prep wrestling team in the Mat-Su Valley. And now that he has his chance, he can’t help but think it was worth the wait.

After working with a number of Alaska’s top wrestling coaches as an assistant, Booth is now the head coach of the Colony High School wrestling program.

“It’s been my goal for a long time,” said Booth, a CHS assistant for the last four years who replaces Fred McKenney as head coach.

A former Palmer High grappler, Booth made a number of stops on the path between his days at PHS and his recent promotion.

He wrestled for two years in college, before seeing his career as an athlete come to an end due to injury.

Booth began coaching in rural Alaska after college. He coached junior high and high school wrestlers for two years in Nunanpitchuk and started a prep wrestling program in Yakutat.

Booth returned to the Valley, and helped lead Palmer to a 4A state championship in 1996. He was also an assistant at Palmer Junior Middle School.

Throughout his time in the Valley, Booth has been alongside some of the top wrestling coaches the 49th state has to offer. He was coached by Lancer Smith in high school. Smith was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in December.

As a coach at Palmer, Booth worked with Lennie Zalesky, an All-American grappler at the University of Iowa who is now the head coach of the University of California-Davis wrestling program.

He served as an assistant under Don Malone at PJMS, a longtime coach in the community. He also spent time at Teeland Middle School with his brother Bill, who is the winningest middle school wrestling coach in Alaska history, Booth said.

And for the last four years, Booth has been with McKenney, who led the Knights to the last three state titles.

“I feel really fortunate to have been able to work with those men,” Booth said. “As far as individual experience, I’ve had the chance to work with probably five of the top-10 coaches.”

McKenney led the resurrection of a Colony program which barely could field a full lineup when he took the reigns five years ago. Now the Knights boast arguably the deepest squad in the state.

Booth credited the coaching staff’s work with the youth, middle school and freestyle wrestling programs as the reason for Colony’s dramatic increase in the sheer number of athletes on the squad.

Booth said the CHS coaches aim to work closely with the local middle schools and also get their athletes involved in freestyle wrestling as part of the Tri-Valley Wrestling Club.

“We try to work with our feeder programs and Alaska USA Wrestling,” said Booth, who also coaches about 125 elementary, middle school and high school athletes in the Tri-Valley club. “We’re trying to keep that pipeline going.”

Many of the athletes who compete on a Colony varsity squad that has won the last three ASAA 4A state titles also wrestle for a Tri-Valley club which has won the last four state freestyle championships.

Booth said Tony Olivera, Pat O’Neal and Bill Booth will all be assistants in the program.

When McKenney resigned from his position as head coach earlier in the year, he said it was intention to step aside and let Booth have the opportunity to run the program.

“Coach Booth has been a good assistant for the last four years,” McKenney said earlier this year. “It’s time for him to become a head coach.”

Colony activities director Mike Boyd echoed McKenney’s sentiments.

“We think Dave is ready to be a head coach,” Boyd said. “He’s been a vital part of the success. He’s put in the time, he’s earned it.”

McKenney said he decided to step away from the Colony program in order to find new challenges.

“My job was basically to establish a good wrestling program and I think I’ve done that,” McKenney said. “I’m looking for new challenges. What I really like is the challenge of developing a wrestling program. I owe the sport of wrestling a lot. It’s meant a lot to me in my lifetime.”

After a five-year stint at Kotzebue, McKenney made the move to Colony in 2004. When he first arrived, Colony could barely hit double digits in terms of the number of wrestlers on the squad.

“Coming into the wrestling room for the first time, we had eight kids, and the toughest one looked like Harry Potter,” said McKenney, making reference to four-time state champion Hollan Gravely, a former CHS wrestling star who looked a bit like the title character of the adventure book series. “I thought this is going to be interesting.”

The number of wrestlers on the McKenney-led squad quickly grew, and instead of barely being able to hit double-digits, the Knights flirted with triple-digits.

“We have a very strong program right now. With 15 state qualifiers and national placers coming back, and a really solid core of young (junior varsity) wrestlers, the program’s in great shape,” McKenney said. “Coach Booth can keep that going.”

Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.