Woodburn Independent Online

Woodburn graduate named state wrestling coach of the year

David Doman guided Crane to third place at state tournament

• By: Garrett Rudolph  
• Published: 3/5/2010 2:30:31 PM

Photo By: Garrett RudolphWoodburn High School graduate David Doman was named 2A/1A state wrestling coach of the year. Doman (left) guided Crane to third place at the state tournament.

CRANE — When David Doman first became a teacher and coach at Crane High School, there wasn’t much of a wrestling culture in place.
 
The community support and understanding paled in comparison to that of Woodburn High School, where Doman graduated in 1992.
 
That, coupled with misperceptions of the sport and the difficulties of recruiting athletes at a school with a student-body population of less than a hundred, made it a challenging task to build a successful wrestling program.
 
However, after eight years at the public boarding school in eastern Oregon, Doman is seeing his efforts pay off. After winning their third straight district title, the Mustangs brought home the third-place trophy at this year’s Class 2A/1A state wrestling tournament.
 
It was Crane’s highest placing ever at the state tournament, and garnered Doman the Class 2A/1A state coach of the year award, as voted on by fellow small school coaches.
 
“For me, it was quite an honor to have my peers choose me as coach of the year,” said Doman.
 
He said a lot of his coaching routine and philosophy has been based on his own coaches from his past, including former Woodburn coach Sam Jones and former BYU coach Mark Schultz, as well as his father.
 
“Without a doubt, wrestling has been a family tradition of ours,” said Doman, whose younger brothers Stephen and Ronnie and cousin Kyle all wrestle for Canby High School.
 
“The more you’re involved with wrestling, the more you see that’s the case elsewhere, as well.”
 
Originally, Doman considered wrestling to be more of a fallback than anything else, and wanted more to play football in college, before a back injury forced him out of the sport
 
“When I was young, and in high school, I didn’t enjoy (wrestling) that much,” he said. “It was a tremendous amount of hard work and I saw marginal success, but I wasn’t a highly successful wrestler. It wasn’t until I was older and was involved with intercollegiate athletics that I gained more of an appreciation for wrestling.”
 
Doman wrestled for a short time at Ricks Junior College in Idaho, before moving on to wrestle at BYU. While he never made BYU’s varsity lineup, he earned a scholarship that helped him pay for his education, and he took advantage of the opportunity to learn more about the sport, with the idea that he would eventually go into high school coaching and teaching.
 
Now, he’s trying to share his wrestling knowledge and experience with the athletes at Crane, which had solid youth programs in place when he arrived, but not much history at the high school level. This year, Crane sent 11 wrestlers to the state meet, including a pair of finalists. During the regular season, Crane wrestled perennial state powerhouse Burns to a tie in a dual meet.
 
While the Hilanders were missing a few of their top wrestlers, Doman said it was still an accomplishment considering Burns’ nine state championships in school history and three times the student population of Crane.
 
In addition to Doman’s coaching duties, he also teaches wood shop and Spanish at Crane.

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