The College of New Jersey’s Icenhower captures 400th career coaching win
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Ann King (TCNJ)
01/05/2004
Ewing, NJ - Ranked fourth in Division III, The College of New Jersey's wrestling team hosted the Muskies of Lakeland College on Sunday afternoon and posted a convincing 47-0 win. With the win, the Lions are now 4-0 and Lakeland drops 1-4. The Lions have also extended their dual match win streak to 15-matches dating back to January of 2003. The win over Lakeland also marked the 400th career win for TCNJ veteran head coach David Icenhower, Sr. Now in his 28th season at TCNJ, Icenhower sports a career dual meet record of 400-68-3 since he started at the school during the 1976-1977 season. The wrestling program at TCNJ has also improved to 504-100-6 all-time in dual meets since the program started in 1966. In attendance at the meet on Sunday, was the program's first head coach, Mike Curry. During his tenure, Curry guided the Lions to a 104-32-3 record. The match was highlighted by three pins, three major decisions and one technical fall win for the Lions. Icenhower, a two-time NCAA Division III Coach-of-the-Year honoree, is in his 28th season at the helm of the division's most successful program. Icenhower has produced five NCAA Division III team championships winners at TCNJ beginning with the 1979 team which achieved the first NCAA crown in The College's history. "Ice" has also piloted the Lions to national titles in 1981, 1983, 1984, and 1987. Under Icenhower, the Lions have finished in the top five nationally during 18 of his 27 seasons, including a third place finish in 1999 as TCNJ served as the host site for the NCAA Division III Championship. The 2000-2001 Lions took fifth place at the NCAA's after establishing a school record for most wins in a season after a 20-4 dual match campaign. The Lions are coming off another record season that saw the squad capture first place finishes at both the Bud Whitehill Division III National Duals, the 2003 Metropolitan Conference Championships, while taking third place at the prestigious NWCA National Duals, and a seventh place showing at the 2003 NCAA Division III Championships. Along the way, last year, the Lions went 21-1 on the season and recorded the program's 500th career victory in a dual match. A 1971 graduate of Lehigh University and a product of the Division I school's outstanding wrestling program, Icenhower is a member of the NCAA Wrestling Sports Committee and has chaired its Division III subcommittee. In 1986, he served as tournament director for the NCAA Division III Championships, which was hosted by TCNJ. His coachingrecord in dual meets to date at The College of New Jersey is 400-68-3 (an .852 winning percentage). The Lions have achieved six undefeated seasons under Icenhower. The 1978-79 team went 15-0 en route to TSC's first Division III title in any sport. The 1980-81 and 1983-84 teams, which posted 17-0 and 14-0 records respectively, also won NCAA crowns. The 1993-94 squad went 16-0, but finished third at the NCAA's after earlier in the year capturing the prestigious Division III Dual Championship. During one three-year stretch between 1979-81, his teams produced a 46-1 record. The 1994-95 Lions went 19-0 in dual meets, while also successfully defending their 1994 Division III Dual Challenge Championship. The Lions won three straight Division III Dual Championships spanning from 1994 to 1996. Seven years ago, the Lions' dual meet win streak came to end, but not before they had reeled off 54 straight wins, which dated back to February of 1993, as well their home dual meet win streak that stood at 27 matches, dating back to December of 1990. The Lions' only loss on the 1995-96 season was a heartbreaking 21-19 decision at the hands of the Red Dragons of SUNY Cortland. The 2003-2004 Lions now have an overall win streak of 14 dual matches, while also riding a home dual match win streak of eight matches dating back to February 2, 2002 when the Lions dropped a 23-21 decision to SUNY-Oswego Named the Division III Coach-of-the-Year in 1979 and 1987, Icenhower has produced 65 wrestlers who have combined for 112 All-American honors, including 20 Division III individual champions and one Division I titlist. Under Icenhower, the Lions have also won 21 of the last 25 Metropolitan Conference championships, including fourteen in a row from 1984 until 1998. Twelve times he has been cited as the Met's Coach-of-the-Year, including back-to-back selections in 2002 and 2003. Perhaps his crowning achievement, however, came in 1982 when he became the first Division III pilot to ever be a head coach in the prestigious East-West All-Star Meet. The honor repeated itself in 1997 when Icenhower was once again tapped to serve as a coach for the All-Star Meet, becoming the first Division III coach to serve twice on the staff of the East-West All-Star Meet. At the 1999 NCAA Championships, Icenhower was inducted into the NWCA Division III Hall of Fame and joined an elite club of just four coaches in all divisions that have coached over 100 NCAA All-Americans. Icenhower's teams have won 10 New Jersey Athletic Conference championships outright and tied for another, posting a 56-5 league mark during that 14-year period (1980-93). In 1988, TCNJ also won the first annual NJAC post-season tournament, which was also hosted by The College. Icenhower pilots the country's most successful Division III wrestling program.