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Ralph Cubberly feels as if he just won the lottery.
Two positions, social studies teacher and head wrestling coach, opened up at Clay High School for the 2011-12 school year and Cubberly jumped at the opportunity to fill both positions.
The Oregon School Board on Wednesday unanimously approved Cubberly to be Clay's next wrestling coach beginning next season. He also will teach social studies at the high school.
Cubberly, 47, a highly successful wrestling coach at Eastwood, takes over for Gerry Anthony, who retired after leading Clay to the last three City League championships.
“It was a good opportunity and I wanted to be there,” Cubberly said. “It's a good program with a solid foundation and good coaches and a great junior high program. It's actually a dream job for me, honestly. I'm really happy to be there and I'm proud to be there. What Gerry Anthony and the assistant coaching staff have built at Clay, you can't say enough about them.”
Clay Athletic Director Mike Donnelly said Cubberly was one of five applicants for the coaching position.
“He submitted his resume and we were impressed,” Donnelly said. “Talking to him in an interview, you could tell he is obviously very knowledgeable with wrestling and he has a lot of good contacts. His demeanor, you could tell he's been a head coach for a while and a good one at that. We wanted to make sure our program kept going. We didn't want to plateau. We want to be a top-five team in the state and we think Ralph can get us there.”
Cubberly was Eastwood's head coach for 20 years before leaving for Defiance High School following the 2008-09 season.
“There wasn't a teaching position at Eastwood,” said Cubberly, who has maintained a home in Pemberville. “It was 120 miles round trip every day to Defiance. I had a lot of time to think before school and a lot of time to think after practice.”
Defiance finished eighth out of 10 teams at the Western Buckeye League tournament in Cubberly's first year. The Bulldogs finished second in the league last season.
“I put them through a summer training cycle and they worked hard,” Cubberly said of his team's progress. “They wanted to learn to be coached. They got better and they improved. They really worked hard. They only graduate one kid off that team, so they could be champions next year.”
Cubberly was the Division II Coach of the Year in 2006 and a five-time Northwest District Coach of the Year. He was inducted into the Ohio Wrestling Coaches Hall of Fame in 2010.
Cubberly coached five individual state champions and five state runners-up at Eastwood, and he had 65 state qualifiers and 29 state-placers. The Eagles took second at the Division II state tournament in 2005 and '06 and won five Suburban Lakes League titles with six second-place finishes. Eastwood had a 351-99 dual-meet record in Cubberly's 20 seasons.
Cubberly said that although his Eastwood teams never competed against Clay, he is familiar with the Lake Erie Wrestling Club, coached by Troy McLaughlin and Mark Beach. Those two are responsible for feeding many top wrestlers into Clay's program and several others.
“A lot of my (Eastwood) kids used to go to the Lake Erie Wrestling Club and I got to be good friends with Troy and Mark,” Cubberly said. “They trained a lot of our guys in the summer. We became pretty good friends and we always bounced things off each other. We ended up coaching some national teams together. It just happens to work out that I'm over at Clay now and I'm really excited to get started.”
Cubberly said 28 Clay wrestlers will compete at the Disney Duals on June 23-27 in Orlando, Fla.
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