Mike has been a High School head coach at several locations throughout the Denver area including Columbine, Evergreen, Arvada and Lakewood. He has also served as an assistant coach at Colorado School of Mines in Golden, CO. Currently he is coaching the HS Girls team for Columbine High School.

Michael Marsh can’t imagine what his life might have been like without the sport of wrestling.

“Wrestling opened the door to a journey that has been amazing,” Marsh said. “It motivated me to go to college. I didn’t have a specific goal in high school and wrestling pushed me to go on and get an education. From there, it has always been part of my life.” But while wrestling gave plenty to Marsh, he has returned it tenfold.

Marsh has been a part of wrestling in Colorado for nearly six decades. He wrestled at Broomfield in the 1960s before attending Western State, Mesa Junior College and Colorado State. He has coached at four high schools and one college, and along the way has coached hundreds and hundreds of wrestlers — including state champions — and also helped build programs virtually from scratch.

“Wrestling is such a personal sport,” he said. “I loved all other sports and played them. But the strength and physicality and mental toughness required is what attracted me to the sport. It’s an individual sport and everything you do affects your opportunity for success.”

Marsh has spent much of his adult life passing on that love of the sport to generations of young wrestlers. Marsh’s first job came at Evergreen Junior High in the early 1970s. From there, he moved on to become an assistant and then head coach at Columbine High School, where he coached the school’s first-ever state champion when Scott Rardin won titles in 1979 and 1981. He also served as the head coach at Evergreen, Arvada and Lakewood high schools, and as an assistant at Colorado School of Mines.

Each stop provided memories that still burn brightly. “It was very special to have coached the very first state champion at Columbine,” Marsh said. “That was a privilege. But every place I’ve have had special moments. Every school had great kids.”

After his high school coaching career, he spent a decade as an assistant at Mines. “I didn’t even consider it a job,” he said. “The athletes there were special kids. It’s so difficult to balance the rigors of academics and college sports and I was in awe of those young men and how they were able to achieve that balance at a school like Mines.”

Marsh left coaching in 2015 — but that didn’t last long. He recently returned to Columbine to become a volunteer assistant, where he helped form the school’s first-ever girl’s team. Last season, in the program’s inaugural year, Columbine had 18 girls. They sent three qualifiers to the state tournament, with one top-four finisher.

“That was a proud moment and season for me,” he said. Through his five decades of coaching, Marsh never considered a Hall of Fame honor. He coached because he loved the sport and wanted to share that passion with young people.

“I’m absolutely thrilled,” he said. “I never would have thought it — and I’m blown away by the honor. I’m just proud to have helped some kids along the way.”

Presenter- Bob Smith