Robbinsville – After nearly four months of speculation and uncertainty, Todd Odom’s replacement as Robbinsville High School’s head wrestling coach has been announced.
And it is a familiar face.
David Haney was selected from a pool of applicants to take over the storied tradition of “The ’Ville.” This will be Haney’s fourth stint as head wrestling coach for Robbinsville, a position he held from 1978-84, from 1987-90 and then again for the 1992-93 season.
“I’m excited; I’m glad to get to come home,” Haney told The Graham Star on Friday. “I’m extremely humbled by the support and congratulatory remarks. It’s not going to be me that does it; it’s going to be ‘we.’
“‘The ’Ville’ is not David Haney; David Haney is just a part of ‘The ’Ville.’ I think we can grow, but I appreciate the support of Graham County and Robbinsville.”
Haney was the head coach for the Knights’ first state individual champion – Lynn Hooper, who won the 140-pound crown in 1989 – as well as James Orr’s second consecutive title in 1993. Orr won it at 103 pounds in 1992, then 112 in 1993.
Haney has a solid resume to back up his hiring. After a collegiate career wrestling at Western Carolina University, he coached three Smoky Mountain Conference championship teams for Robbinsville and was also named the division’s Coach of the Year on three separate occasions.
Haney also raised the funds for Robbinsville’s first wrestling mat and established wrestling as part of the Smoky Mountain Conference both at the high school and middle school levels. Time between stints as Robbinsville’s head coach included stops at Owen and Murphy high schools, where Haney introduced the first wrestling program in the Bulldogs’ history.
He also instituted the first youth wrestling program in Graham County, and 40 years later Far West Wrestling is still going strong.
“It has grown so much in our area,” Haney said of the sport. “When I was coaching in the ’70s and ’80s, if we were going to wrestle big competition, we were going to have to go to Asheville; they wouldn’t come to us. We did a lot of traveling and that’s kinda where Todd got his roots; we’ll go wherever we need to go to wrestle.
“It wasn’t until I got the James Orr Invitational started that the schools from Asheville started coming here. Now Enka and T.C. Roberson come (for duals) and then big name teams show up for the James Orr tournament.”
With so many of Haney’s fingerprints already in place on the schematics of Robbinsville’s program, you can expect much of the same when the Knights approach the mat.
“The game plan is for me to take care of all the things a head coach needs to do, but my son Weston – who wrestled at Appalachian State (University) – is going to handle the technical side of it,” Haney said. “He’ll be the mastermind. He’s been the technical side for a few years. Weston was trained by one of the best teachers in the whole nation – JohnMark Bentley.”
Bentley has been named the Southern Conference Coach of the Year five times in his 13 seasons as App State’s head wrestling coach,
“We’re going to be technically sound. We’re going to do it right. There’s a couple of philosophies in wrestling. One is just learning moves, and I’m not into that – I’m into the technical side of it. I told them in my interview, ‘You can learn football, learn plays and defenses, but unless you can block and tackle, you’re not going to win.’ ”