Jan 2, 2022 3 min read

Dave Cook always seemed to be the center of attention as a wrestling coach and official.

After coaching the Washington High School junior high wrestling team for four years, including two impressive undefeated seasons in 1974 and 1975, Cook left to accept the opportunity to build a new program at Ringgold High School.

Before he took that job, Cook had established himself. His junior high teams were powerful, especially his last two. They were envied by opponents and fans.

One afternoon, Cook tired of an opposing fan who was harping on him and his young wrestlers. He grabbed a nearby water bottle and without remorse, squirted it toward the fan in the stands.

“I got tired of listening to what he was saying,” Cook said. “I did worse with water bottles in my career.”

He moved on from Washington with the blessing of his mentor, Stan Mousetis, the Prexies’ coach.

“I had no intention of leaving Washington,” Cook said. “I would have stayed 10 years. I had no ambition to be a high school head coach.”

Cook, right out of California State, was hired as a junior high coach and physical education teacher at Penn Hills. Mousetis called that very day and told him similar jobs were available at Washington. When Mousetis talked, Cook listened.

Cook helped mold a team that would eventually come together in the 1976-77 team dubbed “Uncle Stan’s Million Dollar Wrestling Team.” The Prexies went undefeated while Cook found himself in strange way.

“The story is Ringgold football coach Chuck Abramski thought his staff needed some diversity and asked me to come on board and also to start a wrestling program,” Cook said.

“At that time, you had Donora kids and Monongahela kids and that wasn’t always smooth,” Cook said. “We had 84 kids sign up for wrestling. They had us practice at an elementary school cafeteria. We had to take the chairs and tables out each day.

“I was really pumped for the first day but wasn’t sure how to address 80-plus kids. I start and a couple kids asked, ‘Where are the ropes?’ I’m like, what? The ropes, the say. I said, ‘There are no ropes.’ The next day 40 kids showed up.”

The Rams continued practicing in that cafeteria until the health department said they had to stop practicing in a place where kids were eating, Cook said.

“It was chaos,” he added.