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Sports

Longtime SSHS Wrestling Coach Elected to HOF

Mike Davey will be enshrined in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame on April 29.

As a second-generation wrestler from a highly respected wrestling family, Mike Davey had large wrestling shoes to fill when he first stepped on the mat.

Forty-three years later, Davey will be one of six men elected to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Okla. on April 29.

Davey, who trained under fellow Hall of Fame coach Bob Bury, used everything he learned under him, his father and uncles to take South Side's wrestling program from obscurity to one of the best in the nation. He will now be enshrined alongside his hero, Bury, and his uncle Mike Davey, something he has called a “dream come true.”

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Davey’s best friend and assistant coach for 22 years, Barry Bresky, said he was lucky to coach next to Davey for more than two decades.

“Mike is a wrestling genius, he just has a great knowledge of wrestling,” Bresky said. “He had a great eye to see what a wrestler is doing and what needed to be done next. He took a wrestling program that was down and built it into one of the most respected in the country.”

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Davey, who was a master wrestler himself, won countless individual championships and helped Calhoun High School to a league championship. While wrestling collegiately at SUNY Cortland, he led their program to a New York State championship by taking second in his weight class. Despite all of these acconplishments, many say his greatest work still came off the mat as a teacher and mentor.

“He was an ambassador of wrestling; he would do anything to help the sport,” Bresky said. “He would not think twice about helping wrestlers from other schools, the kids always came first. He has become the unofficial historian of Nassau County Wrestling.”

Davey's wrestling accomplishments spread from the mat, to the books he’s authored, to the records he’s kept and the kids he helped coach.  Those wrestlers include Four New York State place-winners, five county championships, 40 all-county wrestlers and more than 200 dual-meet victories.  Davey is still active in the Cyclones program he helped create, and can frequently be found at practices and matches.

B.A. Schoen, a member of the board of directors of the Friends of Long Island Wrestling said it was no surprise that Davey’s application to the Hall of Fame passed through a local and national “Hall of Fame Committee.”

“He might be the hardest working coach that we’ve seen," he said. "He comes from a prominent wrestling family, and he’s an honorable representative of that clan."

With all of these accomplishments, it should come as no surprise that Rockville Centre’s beloved coach will have more than 150 people in attendance when he goes into the Hall in Stillwater. His greatest accomplishments will never be what he did on the mat, but everything he did off it.

“Mike’s greatest legacy is the relationships that he has made during his coaching career,” Bresky said. “Mike loved the wrestlers and they loved him back.”

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