‘Make me look humble’

People ask for all sorts of things when they are to be featured in the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman.

“Put a little more hair on my head in that photo.” “Make me sound smart.” “Make me taller.” “Make me thinner.” “Make me look good.”

But we were surprised by Palmer Junior Middle School wrestling coach Don Malone’s request to “make me look humble.”

He’s been a Palmer staple mat-side since 1992, first as part of the Palmer High School program and then beginning in 1999 as coach of the middle school program.

He got involved when his sons were in seventh and eighth grade. He was there in 1996 when his son, Chad, won a state title at 215 pounds to help the Moose win the state championship that year.

In addition to nurturing grapplers at the middle school level, coach Malone also coaches in the Mat-Su Matmen club, a youth wrestling program founded in 2008.

Seeing young wrestlers add skills and strength is part of what motivates coach Malone, he said. But primarily, he’s a family man.

He and his wife, Ellen, are the proud parents of two boys and six girls adopted from places as far flung as Minnesota and South India.

“We wanted children, and that is how we decided to do it,” Malone said. “(A big family) is very natural for us.”

We certainly know coach Malone from covering sports in the Mat-Su Valley. But that’s not how we came to profile him in today’s “Our Neighbor” story on page A1.

That decision started with a phone call from columnist Ben Compton. He called to sing coach Malone’s praises and followed up with an email packed with details of the coach’s kindness and generosity.

Here’s part of what Compton had to say: “Each year he spends his OWN money to pay assistant coaches if the school can’t afford it. He spends his OWN money on his wrestlers in the form of food, T-shirts, awards or whatever else he thinks is important. The PJMS team has been able to wrestle in far-away cities like Valdez because Don Malone quietly paid thousands of dollars out of his own pocket to make sure his team could go when the school didn’t have the money. He voluntarily stops the bus on road trips so the PJMS team can get out and wrestle some of the smaller school wrestling teams that might not otherwise be able to gain the experience or go to as many tournaments as his own team.”

Maybe coach Malone didn’t want us to spill these beans, but we think our neighbors should know that such a man lives quietly among us every day.

Thank you, coach Malone, for all the good you’ve added to our community; and to Compton, thanks for spilling the beans.