Dave Grant Position: Head Coach Experience: 13th season Alma Mater: Northern Iowa 1985

E-Mail Coach Grant davegrant@niu.edu

Now in his 13th season leading the NIU wrestling program, Dave Grant has built a program that is annually competing for the Mid-American Conference title and has made its mark on a national level.

During his tenure with the Huskies, Grant has posted a 108-82-6 (.566) record, and coached 29 wrestlers to 36 NCAA Championships appearances, including three All-Americans.

Last season, Grant guided Northern Illinois to a 11-7-0 record, the sixth 10-win season in the last seven years. The Huskies also picked up one of the biggest wins in program history, upsetting No. 5 Northwestern, 22-19. To cap the season, Pat Castillo earned his 100th career victory at the NCAA Championships. Castillo was also named the MAC Tournament Most Outstanding Wrestler for the second time in his career. Castillo and redshirt freshman Pat McLemore both won MAC titles, and were two of the three Huskies to compete at nationals.

In 2006-07, Grant also sent four grapplers to the tournament, including Castillo's second and Johnny Galloway's third trip to nationals. As a team, the Huskies finished 6-4-1, and had four wrestlers ranked in the Intermat/NWCA/NWMA top-20 in their respective weight classes.

Grant's 2005-06 team earned a national ranking as high as No. 23 on its way to a 10-5-2 dual meet record, marking the fifth consecutive season with 10 or more victories. In addition, the Huskies had two league champions and sent three to nationals after hosting the MAC Championships in DeKalb.

The 2004-05 season continued NIU's presence on the national stage as the squad sent four wrestlers to the NCAA Championships, extending the Huskies' consecutive appearance streak to 33 years. That year, Northern Illinois picked up wins over Purdue University and several MAC rivals. The Huskies prospered individually as well with eight placewinners at the 2005 MAC Championships.

To say the Huskies made a "splash" in 2004 would be vastly understated. In addition to winning the program's 50th dual match in four years, NIU shocked the "experts" by finishing second in the Mid-American Conference in what was deemed a rebuilding year. The Huskies had a school-record nine wrestlers place at the MAC summit, including Ben Heizer and Sam Hiatt, who brought home conference crowns for the second consecutive year. Heizer, Hiatt and Josh Wooton all represented the Huskies at the 2004 NCAA Championships and guided NIU to a 23rd-place national finish. Led by the efforts of Heizer, who was the NCAA runner-up at 184 pounds, NIU served notice to the rest of the country that a new program was ready to join the nation's elite.

In 2003, the Huskies topped its 14 win total from the previous year and tied a school-record with 15 victories. Grant's seventh season also saw a school record for scoring at the NCAA Championships (26.5 points), yet another top-25 finish nationally, and the school's first pair of NCAA All-Americans in the same season.

NIU's 29 wins during the 2001-02 and 2002-03 seasons is the top two-year win total in school history, while its 38 wins from 2001-04 tied Don Flavin's three-year mark of 38 from 1971-74.

In 2003, the Huskies were the MAC's top representative at the NCAA Championships. Led by All-Americans Scott Owen and Ben Heizer, the Huskies finished 22nd at the NCAA meet and saw its national ranking reach as high as 15 during the regular season. In addition to sharing the MAC regular season championship with Central Michigan, NIU boasted dual match wins over the 13th-ranked Chippewas, No. 5 Ohio State and No. 8 Missouri.

In 2001-02, the Huskies earned the third-best record in school history with a 14-4 mark, and fninished second in the MAC. After the school's best showing at the Mid-American Conference Championships since 1985, Grant was recognized as the MAC Coach of the Year.

On the strength of three individual MAC champions, Northern Illinois sent four wrestlers to the NCAA Tournament that year. At the championships, Owen picked up the school's first All-America accolades in three years with his fifth-place showing.

In 2000-01, Northern Illinois posted its first winning season since 1988-89 by compiling a 9-8-2 record. Combined with 2001-02, the Huskies had their first back-to-back winning campaigns since the 1981-82 and 1982-83 teams recorded 8-6 and 8-5 seasons, respectively. The program had come quite a long way from the 3-10 squad that Grant inherited in 1995.

As the top assistant for the University of Minnesota for 10 seasons, Grant played an integral role in luring what was tabbed as the nation's top recruiting classes for 1987 and 1995, as rated by Amateur Wrestling News (AWN). The latter Golden Gopher recruiting class included six AWN High School All-Americans, bringing his total of All-American signees to 23.

A native of Lexington, Ky., Grant helped guide the Golden Gophers to a regular spot in the nation's top 20 teams during his 10 years (1986-96) with four finishes in the top 10 between 1989 and 1993. In Grant's 10 seasons, Minnesota produced 14 Golden Gopher wrestlers who earned a total of 23 All-America honors, along with five NCAA finalists and one national champion.

Grant carried that success into his first season at the NIU helm. Although his team managed only a 4-9 dual-meet record, the Huskies sprinted to the finish line at crunch time. Northern Illinois placed fifth in the MAC tournament, with mid-year transfer Jeremy Goeden winning the school's first league title since 1985.

Under Grant's tutelage, Goeden eventually placed eighth at the NCAA Championships, becoming the first Huskie All-America wrestler in almost a quarter of a century. In 1998, he added a second All-America honor with a seventh-place finish, becoming NIU's first two-time All-America grappler in more than three decades.

While at NIU, Grant has landed a series of heralded recruiting classes. The first group paid immediate dividends as Goeden won his first of two All-America accolades, while the 2001 class was named the 18th-best group in the country according to Intermat.com's ratings. Grant's efforts have brought 27 state high school champions into the NIU program.

"Recruiting is the name of the game," Grant said. "NIU has an impressive long-standing history over the years, and our job is to recapture that solid tradition. We want to key off that past success and re-establish Northern Illinois among the top schools around. Our goal is to place NIU among the top teams in the nation."

"My goal is to bring in quality athletes with a strong work ethic," Grant said. "I want to help them develop and reach their full potential. The plan is to produce national champions and All-America wrestlers."

Grant's grapplers were named to the 2006 National Wrestling Coaches Association (NWCA) Top 30 All-Academic Wrestling Teams following the 2005-06 school year, finishing 16th with a cumulative grade-point-average of 2.937. The criteria for the award was the cumulative GPA of the 10 wrestlers that competed in the Mid-American Conference Tournament, as well as two alternates that wrestled in at least one varsity match.

As a collegiate student-athlete, Grant transferred to the University of Northern Iowa from the University of Kentucky after the Wildcats dropped their wrestling program. He gained All-America status for the Panthers in 1984 with an impressive 32-11-1 record and an eighth-place showing at the NCAA Championships at 158-pounds. He followed that successful campaign with a 20-4-1 mark at 167 pounds as a senior and completed his collegiate career with an 86-37-4 (.693) ledger.

Grant received his bachelor of arts degree in physical education and coaching from the University of Northern Iowa in 1985 and gained his master of education degree in kinesiology from Minnesota in 1997.

The 46-year-old Grant is married to the former Kris Langsdorf of Minneapolis, Minn.