Dick Brenneman Mount Rainier High School 1959-1980 Dick began his wrestling career at Englewood High School in Colorado as an assistant coach in 1951. In 1959 he moved to Mt. Rainier High School as Head Wrestling Coach. He held this position for 21 years until he retired from teaching in 1980. Dick coached two top ten placing teams and coached three state champions, three runners up, one a third placer and nine top ten finishers. Twenty nine of his wrestlers went on to compete at the college level with two becoming conference champs and one a third place. Two wrestlers became national champions in freestyle and greco-roman wrestling. Besides starting the first wrestling program at Mt. Rainier, Dick helped organize the Northwest Wrestling Officials Association, co-authored the first Constitution of the Washington State Wrestling Coaches Association as well as the regional concept for qualifying for the state tournament which was adopted by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association. Dick also held the first "Takedown Tournament" in the state and served on the first Japanese Cultural Exchange Committee. In the early 1960's Coach Brenneman was very instrumental in instituting many wrestling rule changes making the sport safer for all participants. He organized some of the first double-dual and triple-dual wrestling matches in Washington State and authored and created many wrestling cartoons used on posters, t-shirts and published in the Scholastic Wrestling National Magazine. For seven years from 1971 through 1977, Coach Brenneman originated the first summer day wrestling camps each followed by a wrestling tournament. Guest coaches at the camps were generally college coaches from the Pacific Northwest. In the 1970's Dick organized and annually directed many local, state and national scholastic and freestyle wrestling tournaments. In 1978 he retired from the US Navy Reserves with the rank of Commander. Coach Brenneman was the commanding officer of a naval squadron which was awarded the Noel Davis Trophy signifying the best in the nation. Dick and his with Ruth are now both retired and have raised six children, four boys and two girls. They have seven grandchildren and one great grandson. Dick enjoys hunting, fishing and playing golf. Dick states "At 85 years old he's lost his hair, hearing, sight and teeth. His favorite foods are enchiladas and he lives by the motto - Live Fast, Die Young and be a beautiful corpse".