Hall of Fame News and Sentinel III - Dean Moore

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MOV trio set to join National Wrestling Hall of Fame
September 18, 2021 Parkersburg News and Sentinel
By Jay Bennett, at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com

PARKERSBURG — A trio of locals from the Mid-Ohio Valley will be inducted into the West Virginia Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame during a Halloween afternoon banquet at the Embassy Suites in Charleston.

Tyler Westbrook, a 2002 graduate of Williamstown High School who died in 2015, will be honored posthumously with the “Outstanding American” award. Joining him as “Lifetime Service to Wrestling” honorees will be his former Yellowjacket coach Jeff Givens as well as longtime area coach and official Dean Moore.

Moore was more than stoked to find out he had been inducted for the Class of 2021.

“I thought that was really neat. Really kind of unexpected,” admitted Moore, who just had his 50th high school reunion at Parkersburg South. “Woody (Burns) is the one who recommended me and after I was accepted Diane Archer called and told me. I was, you know, really happy. I think that’s a great honor.”

Moore said he played football for three years at PSHS and got into wrestling when Dave Jeffrey asked him to coach the City Park youth mat team.

“I started studying and watching films and I coached there for three years at Wood County Recreation,” Moore recalled.

After that, he got with Mike Litton and the Parkersburg YMCA Cougars, started officiating and then coached at Franklin Junior High as an assistant to Tim Ross and also later Rich Williams. He then became an assistant at Edison.

Along with coaching the Junior Patriots Club, which won the 1998 Tulsa National team title, he was an unpaid assistant at Parkersburg South for seven years with Paul Jackson as well as a paid assistant for one year under Donna Dixon before giving that up to current head coach Shaun Smith, who started as an assistant.

“It’s kind of surreal. It’s amazing,” coach Smith said of Moore being inducted. “He coached me with the Junior Patriots. He was always kind of like, initially, seemed like this hard-nosed rough person, but the more you were around him the more you realized how just awesome of a person he is.

“He’s done a lot of great things, not just South, but all of southside wrestling. He was a head coach for the Junior Patriots it seems like forever. He never had a kid in it. He was just always there for everyone else. It’s pretty surreal to be able to see his name getting inducted. He definitely deserves it.”

Moore, who also assisted coach Smith, added that once he got the coaching bug “I said I was going to get real serious with this sport. Now that I look back on it after I got started into it, there’s all kinds of coaches I could thank along the way. Mike Litton was really my inspiration. He was 100% into it and he geared me toward being the best and I just kind of fed off that.”

The Sunday, Oct. 31 banquet will start with a social hour at 1 p.m. with dinner following at 1:45 p.m.

Cost to attend the ceremony is $55 and more information can be found online at http://wvmat.com/hallfame/hfreg21.pdf

Full Article: https://www.newsandsentinel.com/sports/ ... l-of-fame/