East Atchison High School Wrestling Head Coach Matt Darrah, middle, earned his 200th career win as a coach last week. Pictured are, from left to right: front row – Linkin Murry and Bo Graves; middle row – Assistant Coach Grant Turnbull, Alyson Wooten, Head Coach Matt Darrah, Brooklyn Wennihan, and Assistant Coach Gerry Collingham; and back row – Tanner Rollins, Braiden Wennihan, and Sammie Litherbury.

By The Pin Doctors

East Atchison High School Wrestling Coach Matt Darrah, who was a Dowling High School 1985 and Northwest Missouri State graduate, as well as a Clarinda Academy coach, has earned his 200th career win as a coach. The Wolves won a dual 30-12 last week resulting in this huge milestone!

Prior to assuming the role of East Atchison head coach, Matt coached at Clarinda Academy, where he has spent the majority of his coaching career. He also coached at Maryville High School and also spent some time as a volunteer coach at Dowling.

Matt wrestled for WDM Dowling High School and was a 2X State Qualifier and 1X State Placer, placing 3rd as a junior at 3A 98 in 1984. In that tournament, he defeated a Junior National Champ (Sean Watt of Ames) AND a future 2X state champion/3X D1 AA (Gary Steffensmeier of Fort Madison HS/UNI Panthers) to place 3rd (4X undefeated State Champion, Dan Knight won that gauntlet of a bracket).

What makes this even more sweet is that Matt is the son of a man who may very well be the all-time Iowa High School Wrestling Coach. The late and great Bob Darrah, who was responsible for creating two of Iowa wrestling history’s all-time greatest dynasties at Morning Sun High School and West Des Moines Dowling High School. Bob put together a career record of 340-17-2 as a high school wrestling coach. His .950 winning percentage is the all-time best for an Iowa wrestling coach. He also had a record of 86-25-1 coaching at the D3 level for Simpson College.

Congrats, Matt!!! The apple obviously doesn’t fall far from the tree and I think it goes without saying that your father would be incredibly proud of the accolade you accomplished!