ERIE — Getting your first college head coaching job is never easy. Getting it one year after graduating college is even tougher.

For Don Henry, however, that was the easy part.

Henry has spent the past 22 seasons as the wrestling coach at Gannon University, the first year coming after the school had discontinued the program the previous 13 years.

After graduating from Harbor Creek High School, Henry matriculated to Slippery Rock University, where he wrestled for four years.

He was a team captain his junior and senior years and placed three times at the PSACChampionships, including a second-place finish as a senior.

Henry also was a two-time NCAADivision I national qualifier at 142 pounds.

"SRU was one of the few programs within a three-hour radius that had parks and recreation, which is what I wanted to major in, and it had wrestling, too," said Henry,

After graduating in 1983, Henry spent another year at SRU for graduate school before Gannon came calling.

"The opportunity came up and came out of nowhere," said Henry. "I thought my ultimate goal was going into community outreach services, like the YMCA, to work up to that.

"I fell into the Gannon job and passed up all those other things," he added.

Once he got the job, restarting the wrestling program did take some effort.

"I honestly thought it would be easy coaching Division II after wrestling Division I," said Henry. "I thought to bring the team together and be competitive would be easy. I was wrong.

"Once I realized that, I began to build. Then, I thought it would be easy to bring guys to a Catholic school, and I was wrong there, too," he added.

By his own estimation, it took Henry about three years to get things rolling.

Under Henry's tutelage, Gannon has boasted 11 all-American wrestlers totaling 16 honors, including Butler High graduate Lyneil Mitchell, who did so in 2001-02 and 2002-03.

Mitchell, now an assistant coach, along with Butler alum Jason Parker, was the national runner-up in 2001-02 and finished third the following year as a senior.

Henry had one national champion in Doug Joseph (2000-01), and his team has finished ranked in the top 25 the past eight years.

Henry's overall dual record is 110-165-3, although dual matches are not a huge priority in college wrestling. Developing athletes for tournaments and the post-season is paramount.

After the 2002 season, Henry received the National Wrestling Coaches Association Robert Bubb Coaching Excellence Award.

The reason for Henry's success? Keeping it simple.

"Conditioning. I like us to be in better condition than anyone else. Lots of pre-season running," said Henry, who also lists a variety of holds as playing a key role to success.

Looking back over the years, however, nothing stands out more than the sum of the parts.

"I don't think there's one individual I'm more proud of than the others, but I think of them as a group," said Henry. "They leave here different than when they came in. They leave as men, and I enjoy that aspect.

"We have an alumni reunion Saturday and have guys from every team represented. People are always the same, but the names have changed. It's still the same guys."

<i>This is one in a series of articles on Slippery Rock University graduates who have moved on to athletic careers elsewhere.</i>