ST. LOUIS — After winning the program's first-ever regional title, including six individual champions and eight total national qualifiers, Gannon's Don Henry was named the National Wrestling Coaches Association's NCAA Division II National Coach of the Year.
 
Henry, who is in his 37th season leading the Golden Knight men's wrestling program, earned the Super Region 1 Coach of the Year award for the fifth time in his career after Gannon ran away with the team title two weeks ago.

NWCA RELEASE
 
Henry has guided the Gannon program through some of the best seasons in school history during the last 20 campaigns. He has coached 16 regional champions and qualified wrestlers for the national championships 71 times during that time span. As a team, the Golden Knights have recorded top-30 national finishes 18 times during the last 21 years.
 
While building the Golden Knight program from the ground up, Henry slowly turned the Golden Knights from a program that concentrated on the development of each individual wrestler to being a fully-competitive program in dual competitions and postseason championships. Henry has compiled a 185-143-3 dual record over the last 26 years, including a 151-83-1 mark since the 2000-01 campaign. The Golden Knights have won 66 percent (107-55-1) of their dual matches during the last 12 years.
 
Henry has produced 28 All-Americans who have achieved All-America status a combined 38 times. He has coached 24 regional champions, along with 108 All-Academic wrestlers and 101 national qualifiers. Gannon wrestlers have reached the All-America level 29 times during the last 18 seasons.
 
This season, for the second consecutive year, Gannon will send a program-record eight wrestlers to the NCAA Championships. Despite the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and the cancelation of the conference season by the PSAC, the Golden Knights pieced together a schedule and prepared to hit their peak during the postseason.
 
Also a program record, six individuals won regional championships two weeks ago at the NCAA Super Region 1 Championships, allowing the Knights to lead nearly wire-to-wire in the team standings and easily outdistance runner-up Pitt-Johnstown for the team title.
 
Gannon wrestlers have been ranked nationally at each weight class this season, and the Golden Knights reached and sustained a new level, ranked at No. 4 in the nation by the NWCA coaches poll in each of the last two releases.
 
The Knights responded to the scheduling challenges with tri-meets and "round robin" events where two or three teams got together and wrestled 30-40 bouts with no team scoring. By the end of the regular season, 37 of the 50 wrestlers on the roster wrestled at least one match.
 
Gannon's eight national qualifiers will hit the mats at the 2021 NCAA Division II Wrestling Championships beginning Friday at the America's Center in St. Louis.