By Nicholas Huenefeld

Special to the Sentinel-Tribune

COLUMBUS — Northwest Ohio coaching legend, Rich Wagner, was officially inducted into the Ohio High School Wrestling Coaches Association Hall of Fame on Sunday.

After a 41-year career that spanned stops at Fostoria, Eastwood, Maumee, Genoa and Clay high schools, Wagner, or “Wags” as he is affectionately known in the wrestling world, was recognized for coaching 82 state qualifiers, 32 state placers and seven state champions in the Ohio High School Athletic Association.

“It’s exciting,” Wagner said. “There’s a fair number of people I know (in the hall of fame). There’s a lot of guys that wrestled with me at the district tournament where I won at Fremont that have been coaches and been retired already, and some of those guys are in the hall of fame, too. That’s kind of exciting.”

Wagner was a three-time Greater Toledo Wrestling Coaches Association Division III Coach of the Year. In 1988, he was named the GTWCA Division II Coach of the Year while also being recognized with the Joe Scalzo Award for outstanding coaching and service.

Wagner himself joined the wrestling team as a sophomore at Woodmore High School in 1970. One season later, he became the school’s first-ever state qualifier.

“I didn’t even know what state was,” he said. “I hate to sound like I’m dumb or what, but I was the first one from our school to go. It’s just different. I mean, people are more aware of stuff now.”

Wagner’s coaching career began at Maumee in 1980 as the freshman coach, but he helped with all phases of the program.

“That was a lot of experience,” Wagner said. “My freshman team was our first year of wrestling. A lot of those guys went on after I left. One of them was Kenny Walczak, who was the head coach at Maumee. That’s part of the process.”

After three years, Wagner went on to stints at Eastwood and Fostoria before spending 25 years at Genoa. Fellow OHSWCA Hall of Famer Ralph Cubberly then convinced Wagner to join him at Clay High School, where he was helped out for 10 years.

“It was kind of nice being an assistant coach again where you don’t have to make all the decisions and you don’t have to organize all the stuff,” Wagner said of his time at Clay.

One of Wagner’s most memorable moments was his first state champion, Maco Gonzalez, who won the Class AA state title for Fostoria at 103 pounds in 1988.

“That was exciting and something different,” Wagner said. “I had a lot of good guys who really wanted to wrestle and helped me develop guys into good wrestlers. We took fourth as a team in Division II and got my first state champ with Maco.”

Over the past 10-plus years, Wagner has also helped out with photography at the state tournament.

“I get to see a lot of people that I coached with. Some of the old guys that are maybe not as old as me, but that have been doing it for a while,” Wagner said. “Some of the guys that are officiating, you get to see them and talk to them a little bit.”

After spending over 40 years coaching some of the state’s top wrestlers, Wagner is still figuring out his next step in life.

“I don’t know. I don’t work. (My wife and I) are both retired,” he said. “We watch our grandbabies and put them on the buses … things like that. I don’t know. I do some stuff in the shop. I got a little wood shop that I mess around in.”