Mat Mastery to Mentorship: Coach Watts’ Wrestling Hall of Fame Honor

Redwood Head Boys’ Wrestling Coach, and former wrestler, David Watts was nominated and elected to the California Wrestling Hall of Fame for Lifetime Achievement. The ceremony is set to occur in June 2024. Preluding to this celebration, he and others in the wrestling community share their outlooks on his career.

By: Donya Hassanshahi

Latching onto a passion for more than a day seems unimaginable to kids. Maintaining a relationship from childhood to adulthood is tremendous. As a kid, you wake up and live with the possibility that tomorrow things can, and will change. Your opinions, your knowledge, your outlook on life. The realization that you’re actually team Edward instead of team Jacob—-that Twilight Zone is endless.

Nonetheless, this individual designated his mark by simply investing time, energy, and passion into his aspiration: wrestling.

Meet David Watts: father, husband, mentor, teacher, coach, and former wrestler. Since the seventh grade, Watts had indulged in the realm of wrestling, continuing until graduating college at California State University, Chico. It was then that he initiated his career in coaching and continues to inspire deep admiration for the sport through everyday encounters. Whether acquainting with those knowledgeable of the wrestling community, or individuals unfamiliar, Watts embraces his love for the sport.

Watts and his family have immersed themselves in the game and wrestling community. In 2008, he and his family were honored as the California USA Wrestling Family of the Year.

Being on the mat, the experience that has accumulated from playing is immense. Granted the dedication he has instilled, Watts sums up the sport in one word: “Intense. If you’re not intense in practice, and you’re not intense in a match or a tournament, then you’re probably not going to win. You have to reach the intensity with your skills so that you can get to that next level. And if you want to wrestle at the college level, it has to be ingrained; you don’t even have to think.”

Having wrestled at Chico, Watts says he enjoyed the additional time he spent around the wrestling environment. “When I was finished, I kind of helped with the college team, my old team, and just liked it. A buddy of mine said, ‘Hey, there’s a job across town. They need two coaches and I don’t really want to be the head coach, but we could be co-head coaches. So, that’s when I first started [coaching],” he says.

Transitioning from player to coach came with a newfound understanding of the game. Although Watts understood the technicalities on the mat, he had to navigate and perceive the game from a distance. Luckily, with the aid of his prior coaches and leadership figures, he developed a personalized coaching style, saying, “All of my coaches that I’ve had over the years, I’ve taken something from every single one of them. I’ve been lucky and I’ve had really, really good coaches that inspired me to want to be a coach, and I took their knowledge as much as I could take from them, and I put them all together, and that’s my coaching style.”

When coaching, Watts says, “I tend to, in the corner, I don’t like to get excited. I like to feel comfortable and not everything is. We just need to do the things that we’ve been doing, practice the things we’ve been practicing. If I get excited, then they get excited, then they do the wrong thing, then it’s my fault. Stay focused, listen in the corner.”

Considering the variation of experience that Watts has had with different teammates, teams, and players, he’s come to adapt to situational circumstances. For the past two to three years, his role as a coach has acted more as a mentor and overseer, rather than a technical demonstrator. “I step back a little bit now because I don’t do as much, actually any, teaching in the room anymore. I used to do it all, and your knees and your back just don’t work as good anymore. I’m still there, I still know everything, I just don’t do all the coaching on a daily basis,” he says.

Before coming to Redwood High School, Watts had relayed his expertise and emitted his passion at six high schools. For the past fifteen years, Watts has been a teacher at Redwood High School, though he’s coached at RHS since 2010. In the past, he has coached both football and boys’ wrestling, but this year he is only coaching wrestling.

Dabbling in football himself, he says that football and wrestling coincide. Given the insight he has for both sports, Watts says, “Some people don’t like wrestling, and I don’t have a problem with that, but I do think think that if you’re doing nothing then you should probably be wrestling if you want to be a good football player.”

Despite the success Watts has had with wrestling, he says he didn’t initially like the sport: “I was into other sports and [my first coach] said, ‘You’re going to play football and you’re going to wrestle.’ I was like, ‘I’m not going to wear tights,’ the same thing that everybody always says, and he’s like, ‘Well, you’re going to do it or you’re not going to play football.” I didn’t have to get good, I was already good at it.”

His fondest memory from coaching at the high school division is the year Redwood beat Lemoore. Since 1993, Lemoore has been the school to win the wrestling championship consecutively. That was until Redwood took the title in 2014. “Redwood hadn’t won a championship in twenty-three years, and Lemoore had won the championship nineteen years in a row, and then we finally beat them, right here, in the Redwood gym,” says Watts.

Accomplishing a victory as such, and sharing similar triumphs with his players, is the key incentive for Watts’ continuation and involvement with the sport.

Approximately eight years ago, Watts was nominated for the title, though it wasn’t until this year that he was officially recognized. Watts reveals that throughout the years he has been nominated on numerous occasions. Although every nomination was meaningful, Watts says, “It was great to be nominated by somebody who I actually I coached, and worked with me, because he did see me first-hand and he knew my work-ethic.”

To Watts, he says acquiring a title in the Wrestling Hall of Fame “…is something that was probably inevitable because of the time that I’ve put in, and this is a lifetime achievement award… [but] those kinds of things I don’t worry about that much because they’ll come if you’re doing the right things.”

You have to have an open-mind. You can’t say this is the only way. There’s different ways of doing things, Some are good, some are bad, and you have to develop what’s good for you.”

Coach David Watts relaying his takeaway when approaching wrestling.

Watts had numerous mentors throughout his career. As he stepped up to a leadership role, he became that for many, including 2023 CIF State Girls’ Wrestling Champion Jennah Creason, ’24.

Since the age of four, Creason has been involved with wrestling. With Watts being her first coach, the coach-player dynamic they share has made this award so much more meaningful to Creason. “He was the coach that I walked up to and told him that, ‘I’m going to go to Redwood and win a state title,’ and just knowing that we went through such an emotional thing last year—winning state and him being there for it—-it was just amazing. Thinking back on all the years that I’ve known him and seeing that he got this award was just incredible. It’s definitely shown a lifetime of hard work, a lifetime of dedication,” she says.

Creason’s beaming excitement for Watts is infectious. She says, “It’s incredible that he’s getting this award. It was amazing; I know I was ecstatic when I found out.”

He’s such a great coach, not only on the mat, but also off the mat. He’s always an outlet for athletes and students to go to if they need. He’s just a great, all-around guy.

Jennah Creason, ’24 regarding Watts as a coach, long-time mentor, and person.

If you invest the time into something, it will radiate and show in time. In addition to the impact Watts has on the wrestling community, Creason says that this recognition resembles “…all the hard work that he’s put in over the year.s He’s been a coach for a very long time. He’s known my siblings when they wrestled, so it’s great to see him recognized for that.”

Former Redwood boys’ wrestling coach Marcus Garcia coached alongside Watts for thirteen years. The two coached at El Diamante, and then the two ventured to Redwood.

Not only did he know Watts as a colleague, he knew him personally. Thats right! He played for Watts from the age of ten, coached Watts’ sons, and was exposed to aspiring leadership qualities from his time with Watts. During his wrestling offseason growing up throughout high school, Garcia says, “When we had summers off we would work out and go play golf and wrestling.”

After graduating from college, Garcia began coaching with Watts. “I coached his sons a little bit, like whenever he was coaching me I would coach his sons and he would teach me what it was all about,” he says.

His fondest memories shared with Watts are a compilation of moments as a player and coach. “When I was probably twelve years old or so, I remember we went to Iowa. I went with [Watts] and some other coaches, but he was my adult that took me out of state to a big national tournament. We coached his son in the finals at state his senior year, that was awesome. Coaching his other son Aaron— I remember when Aaron was born. Lots of good memories.” Similar to Watts, Garcia reminisces over “beating Lemoore for the first time. That was definitely one that was a good memory for us.”

Although he has not been an active wrestling coach for the past five years, Garcia has taken what Watts taught him and implemented it while pursuing other undertakings. As a baseball coach for his son, he says Watts instilled in him the key principles of “always showing up, always being on time, [and] being reliable for the kids. He would do anything for the kids, for his guys.”

As a retired athlete, the athletic mentality is second nature to Garcia. He says, “Always being there everyday, working hard—-that’s something [Watts] always pushed and that’s what I push. Not being the best guy out there, but to be putting in the hard work.”

Like coaching, entering the workforce elsewhere has prompted Garcia to keep that mindset. Garcia is the maintenance manager at a creamery in Tulare, which requires crafting a cohesive crew and determining the appropriate attributes of a leader. He says, “I’m the leader here at work, too, just like something that Dave’s taught how to be the leader.”

Receiving the news of Watts’ accumulated title was an unforgettable moment in Garcia’s books, saying, “I don’t even know how to explain it. Something he’s deserved. As soon as he found out, he let me know that he got it and we were just excited. It’s something he’s been working hard at for a long time.”

I think it’s awesome. I actually put a nomination for him maybe eight years ago or so. He’s done a lot of work to get where he’s at right now and to be nominated here. He definitely deserves it. He’s been doing the high school thing, and freestyle thing on the offseason, since I met him. I’m thirty-seven years old now. Since I was ten or eleven years old I don’t know anytime that he hasn’t been doing it.”

Former Wrestler and wrestling coach Marcus Garcia on Watts and their relationship.

Dennis Bardsley began his first year as a high school head coach when Watts was a senior. Since the 1982-83 wrestling season, Bardsley has coached for and alongside Watts for the past forty years.

During his childhood, Bardsley was active in basketball and had a grand appeal for wrestling, but didn’t have access to the sport until his sophomore year in high school.

Given his outlook on Watts from a coach-player perspective, Bardsley says, “He played multiple sports, he was a great athlete. He could’ve been successful in almost anything he wanted to. He was one of those guys, whether he played football, or he could’ve played basketball even though that’s our nemesis, track, and baseball, but his main emphasis was wrestling. His family was a wrestling family also, and his brothers all followed after him.”

The work ethic integrated into Watts’ daily endeavors cannot be equated to one word. Watts’ history with the sport reflects the time he devoted: a successful high school career, two-time state junior college placer, and conference placer during his time at Chico.

Bardsley says, “Wrestling is the excellence, but also the commitment to wrestling throughout his life. He got out of school, and then started teaching, started coaching. He does a great job. Not only is he coaching during the season, he coaches a club team and he also coaches a national team. He’s been a national coach for, I don’t know how many years—you start losing track. I’m going to say at least twenty. His commitment to wrestling, it takes a lot time from your family. He was lucky that his boys wrestled, too.”

While coaching Watts, one of Bardsley’s favorite memories occurred at the Doc Buchanan [Doc B] tournament. “Dave’s wrestling the guy that won the state that year, and back then there were smaller mats, but Dave throws him and put shim on his back, but its out of bounds and he had him flat; it could’ve been a pin. That was just a big moment because the Doc B is one of the toughest tournaments in the nation,” he says.

“Wrestling’s a different sport. It takes a different kind of a person because it’s one-on-one, it takes numerous skills, and to be successful you got to be quick, you got to be strong, you got to have the technique, and you got to have the mental attitude. David was blessed with all those. He was a very hard worker…I call him a kid still and I’m only ten years older than him. I see him all over the place. I just love it when I see kids that I’ve coached coaching… He’s done great.”

Dennis Bardsley discussing the example Watts sets having led the life of a wrestler, similar to his career.

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