Jack Maughan
Jack Maughan has worn many different hats during his long tenure at the University of Northern Colorado but the one thing that has remained constant is his passion for wrestling. Maughan is currently serving a dual role for the University, acting as the Director of Development for the athletics department along with serving as the head coach in his 22nd year. He has also helped form a new wrestling conference, is the past president of the National Wrestling Coaches Association and served as the head women's golf coach until 2006. During Maughan's tenure, the Bears have produced three NCAA champions, five runners-up and 46 All-America performers. As a team, UNC has finished among the nation's top-10 eight times, including third- and fourth-place finishes in 1991 and 1992, respectively, and an eighth-place finish in 1997 and 1998. The Bears notched a fifth place finish in 1996 and a seventh place finish in 2002. At the age of 24, Maughan became the youngest head coach in UNC wrestling history. When he arrived in 1987, he inherited a tradition-rich program which had fallen on hard times. The Bears hadn't had a winning dual-meet season since 1980 and they had finished at or near the bottom of the rugged North Central Conference five of the past six years. Maughan began to rebuild the program by recruiting some of the best high school wrestlers that Colorado and the west region had to offer. Within five years, UNC boasted a pair of two-time national champions in Mike Pantoya of Thornton, Mike Leberknight of Rapids City, S.D. and the school's first-ever four-time All-America performer in Scott Gates of Englewood, as well as the best back-to-back national finishes (third and fourth) in school history. To give his athletes and the UNC fans a firsthand look at the nation's finest wrestlers, Maughan brought the 1992 NCAA Division II Championships to Greeley, and when the Bears placed fourth and produced a national champion, Maughan's peers selected him the Division II National Coach of the Year. Maughan was instrumental in the NCAA bringing its Division II Wrestling Championships back to Greeley in 1996, and UNC responded by breaking the tournament paid attendance record. UNC hosted the NCAA Championships again in 2001. In the Bears' final year as a Division II school in 2002, Maughan and the Bears finished third in the North Central Conference championships and seventh in the nation at the NCAA Division II National Championships. Maughan and the Bears then began the transition back to Division I and were one of the first UNC teams eligible to compete at the NCAA Division I Championship, becoming eligible in 2006-07 along with volleyball - one season before the other 17 sports. In that first season, Maughan had five wrestlers qualify, while last season, 2007-08, both senior heavyweight Reece Hopkin and sophomore 125-pounder Tony Mustari advanced to St. Louis. In 2008-09, the Bears have a young team and one of the toughest schedules in the history of Northern Colorado wrestling, but the advantage of hosting the NCAA West Regional in Butler-Hancock on March 7. Competing for his father and head coach, Arthur "Bucky" Maughan, Jack was a two-time All-America performer at North Dakota State, finishing sixth at 126 pounds as a sophomore and sixth at 134 pounds as a junior. He was a three-time conference runner-up and twice an NDSU team captain. Maughan received his bachelor's degree from NDSU in 1986 and his master's in physical education and athletic administration from Northern Colorado in 1989. Maughan and his wife, Brenda, are the parents of three sons and reside in Windsor.
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