Mr. Neville attended the University of Colorado and won the 1957 Big Seven Wrestling Championship at 137 lbs. In 1956 Mr. Neville won the Rocky Mountain Regional Olympic Qualifier and participated in the Olympic trials in Los Angeles, California in both freestyle and Greco-roman styles.

Mr. Neville coached at the high school level at Colby High School from 1960 thru 1970 and at Hutchinson High School from 1970 to 1995. While at Hutchinson High School, Mr. Neville’s teams won the Kansas State Wrestling Championships in 1973 and 1981. Mr. Neville produced twenty-five (25) individual state champions and sixty-three individual state placers.

Awards and recognition bestowed upon Mr. Neville for his accomplishments include:
1978 – Class 5A High School “Wrestling Coach of the Year” by the Kansas Wrestling Coaches Officials Association.
1981 – Class 6A High School “Wrestling Coach of the Year” by the Kansas Wrestling Coaches Officials Association.
1993 – “Coach of the Year-Wrestling” by the Kansas Coaches Association 1995 – Inducted into the Kansas Wrestling Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

Mr. Neville was also a charter member of the Kansas Wrestling Coaches Association and served two terms as Secretary-Treasurer and two terms as President of the Association.

TIME LINE OF HUTCHINSON YOUTH WRESTLING
BY: LYLE W. NEVILLE

My family and I moved to the Hutchinson community in the summer of 1970, where I had accepted a teaching position at Hutchinson High School teaching and coaching the sport of wrestling.

Two of our sons began wrestling in our basement on a borrowed mat from the high school. Lane was a first grader and Brad was a third grader. We decided to go to Manhattan to have them wrestle in an open tournament that Fritz Knorr and the KSU wrestling team were conducting. Lane won his weight and was named outstanding wrestler of the tournament, Brad won three matches and lost one, winning third place. This fired up their interest in the sport.

The next school year I was approached by Bill Carroll, the YMCA director at the Hutchinson YMCA, where I taught P.E. racquetball classes for the high school. Mr. Carroll asked if I would be interested in directing a youth wrestling program at the YMCA. During the school year of 1971-1972 we had a group of about 15 young men working out and we went to three out of town tournaments; Andale, Colwich, and Douglass.

The school year of 72-73 our numbers had increased to about 35 and we worked out in the high school wrestling room after the high school practice was over. We hosted a tournament at the High School for the first time. The highlight of the season, related to me by my son Lane was that the team all wore matching Y-shirts with a logo honoring Doug Barr, an outstanding Hutchinson wrestler and athlete who had been killed in an accident. The team was called the YMCA Doug Barr wrestling team. The size of our team had grown to about 60 in number.

We held a tournament for area kids teams at the high school gym during the school year 73-74 and 74-75 using several mats on the floor and all of these were sub divided into smaller areas so there were 10 of twelve matches going on at one time. Before dividing the mats, tournaments were lasting from early morning till very late at night because the number of participants was growing and the kids wrestling programs were becoming so popular.

The tournament became an annual event, and had outgrown the high school gym so it was moved to the sports arena which is a larger facility. The first tournament held there was in 1975-76 with about 300 participants. The tournament in 76-77 at the arena drew near 600 participants as more and more communities had started youth wrestling programs. We had continued to enlarge our number of youth wrestlers and started having two sessions after varsity wrestling was over, with novice boys first and then the more experienced wrestlers after, most of the time these practices finished sometime after 9:00 p.m.

Many more teams’ hosted tournaments and qualifying tournaments were held to determine who advanced to sub-state and state tournaments.

The invitational Hutchinson YMCA tournament continued to grow in size and many years it exceeded 1,000 youth wrestlers participating in a one day tournament.

I was involved in coaching the YMCA Youth Wrestling program until after the school year of 1980 - 81. Many outstanding volunteers helped and assisted me including many of our varsity wrestlers and assistant coaches.

Dan Powers, Mike Juby, Mark and David Sandoval, Jim Coons, Tom Coons, Brad Neville, Bob Mauck, Mike Baker, Mike Garcia and many others have maintained a sound coaching staff, working with the youth of Hutchinson. Many of the successful high school wrestlers got their start with the Hutchinson YMCA Wrestling program, going on to compete at the college level.

My family and I have so many happy memories attached to the sport of wrestling, our three sons Brad, Lane and Morgan wrestled and our only daughter Monee was a wrestling cheerleader. We spent many hours of our lives in a gym. Some of our favorite memories include the many medals won, the foes becoming friends, the many friends made and the snacks taken, especially jell-O squares, making pallets on the floor to get a little rest between matches and the many parents involved becoming more like one big family . What a great sport!!!!