Two years ago, Doug Bower was the recipient of the Harry E. Lake Award for “Contributions to New Jersey Wrestling.”

And now he is being inducted into the New Jersey Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame for “Lifetime Service to Wrestling.”

Where to begin.

The road to these honors began to take shape when he wrestled for Wall Township High School and continued onto Trenton State College (The College of New Jersey) where he graduated in 1978.

At Wall he was a District and Region champion, a 3-time district finalist, and once finished 8th in the states.

It didn’t take long to begin his coaching career as he was named head coach at Pt. Pleasant Beach High School where he went 12-3 in 1978-79. From there he was an assistant at Holmdel before taking the Howell job coach and would record a 152-52 before stepping down in 1993.

At Howell his team won a District 21 title and produced 25 District champs. At Howell they won 8 division titles, had 25 district champs, 7 Region champs and 2 state medalists. He was named District Coach of the Year twice and once Shore Conference Coach of the Year.

He went on to be a member of the New Jersey Wrestling Coaches Association, the Shore Chapter’s Wrestling Officials Association, is in the Region 6 Coaches Association Hall of Fame and was awarded the NJSIAA Service Award for Wrestling.

He assisted in running the state championships for 15 years and was involved in the state seeding process for 38 years while developing criteria for districts and regionals leading up to the state tournament.

He was also Executive Director and creator of the Coaches Association, has been a member of the NJSIAA State Interscholastic Athletic Association and the Jersey Shore Interscholastic Wrestling Association.

He also ran various district, region and youth wrestling tournaments.

Doug lives with his wife Lynda in South Wall. They have three children: Jodi, Jeff and Steve, and five grandchildren.