MOUNT VERNON — Longtime teacher and coach Doug Nelson has been tabbed as head coach for the Mount Vernon wrestling team.
His hiring was approved at an October school board meeting.
Nelson replaces Rex Febus, who moved to Uruguay after last season. Either Febus or Kurt Harvill have coached the Bulldogs for the past two decades.
“I wanted to do this for the kids,” Nelson said. “I’m looking forward to working with kids, building that kind of relationship that you can with sports. Get them competing and the inner strength and those great qualities in a human being. You really see that in wrestling — the work ethic, the coachability, the teachability. They’ve got a lot of courage, attributes that as a coach I focus on. Anybody can teach technique, this and that and counters to this. But you have to understand why kids are there, the purpose they’re there (for), and work with that.”
Nelson, who was the school’s track and field head coach earlier this decade, is also an assistant football and track coach. He has been an assistant wrestling coach since the 1980s, though he hasn’t coached in the program the past two years.
“Nellie has been around the wrestling room forever,” Mount Vernon athletic director Dave Riddle said. “He’s got such a great coaching background. He works really well with kids. I love the fact that he’s a teacher. These days it’s harder to find teachers, particularly in your own school, who coach.”
