Former Chadron State College wrestling coach Dr. Scott Ritzen will be inducted into the NCAA Division II Wrestling Coaches Association Hall of Fame Thursday in Birmingham, Ala. The ceremony is in conjunction with the 51st Annual Division II Wrestling National Championships, which begin Friday.

Ritzen joins five wrestlers and one other coach in the 17th NWCA Hall of Fame, which now has 103 members. The coach is James Makovsky, longtime mentor at Minnesota State University-Mankato.

The wrestlers going in include Central Oklahoma’s Cole Province, Mark Dodgren and Shawn Silvis, and San Francisco State’s Morris Johnson and Mauricio Wright.

Ritzen, who retired from coaching in the summer of 2012 but remains as the department chair of health, physical education and recreation, is the first Chadron State College coach or athlete inducted in the NWCA Hall of Fame.

“I wasn’t really thinking about it,” Ritzen said of the induction. “When it happened; it was exciting. It puts the exclamation point on the end of my wrestling career.”

Ritzen, who coached the Eagles for 25 years (1987-2012), retired as the longest tenured coach in Chadron State’s history. He is the school’s winningest wrestling coach with a record of 134-139-8 and he tutored 33 All-Americans and three national champions.

In addition, Eagles have earned first- or second-team academic honors conferred by the NWCA 31 times during Ritzen’s tenure as the coach. Nineteen of those honors have been since 2000.

For all his success as a collegiate wrestler and coach, Ritzen has been inducted into several halls of fame. His first honor came in 1989 when he was inducted into the NAIA Wrestling Hall of Fame. Following that, he was inducted into the Adams State Athletic Hall of Fame in 2005. He was also recently inducted into the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Hall of Fame as a member of the national champion Adams State squad and he’s in the Chadron State Athletic Hall of Fame as a coach.

Ritzen, who was the RMAC coach of the year in 1995, was also thought of highly by his peers, illustrated by his selection as president of the NCAA Division II National Wrestling Coaches Association at the 2004 national tourney.

While attending Adams State College at Alamosa, Colo., where he earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, Ritzen compiled a 71-15-1 record and won NAIA national championships as a 126-pounder in 1980 and 1982. He placed sixth in his weight class at the national tourney his junior year in 1981.

Adams State won the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference title all three years Ritzen wrestled there, and he was on the NAIA national championship team in 1980.

After completing his eligibility at Adams State, Ritzen remained there three years as an assistant coach under Rodger Jehlicka, who had been the Chadron State head coach before moving to the Colorado college. Jehlicka was among those who recommended Ritzen for the CSC position when Darold Andrist resigned in 1987.

The two years before he came to Chadron State, Ritzen was the head wrestling coach at Boulder, Colo., High School, where his team had just a 2-11 dual record the first year, but improved to 8-5 the following season.

He and his wife, Donna, also a professor at Chadron State, have three children: John, Nikki and Joe. John is an adjunct faculty member and a volunteer track and field coach at CSC, Nikki is a senior member on the Eagles’ softball team, and Joe attends Chadron Middle School.

Alex Helmbrecht, Sports Information Director