Olliff steps aside as Dragons head wrestling coach

Tony Olliff / Submitted photo

Tony Olliff is stepping aside as head coach of the Dallas High School wrestling team after more than 20 years.

Stepping aside, that is. Not stepping away.

Olliff remains with the program as an assistant to new head coach Austin Markee, long-time coach for the middle school program.

“You’re 34. I’m 55,” Olliff said of why he handed the reins to Markee. “Let me step out and you take over. So (Austin) is the future of Dallas wrestling.”

And the future, as Olliff sees it, is for Markee to take the program to a higher level.

“I cut my teeth … on first-year wrestlers. Everything I did was predicated on the notion that I was getting raw talent. People who were good wrestlers, but had never wrestled,” said Olliff. “That’s how I began to develop wrestlers. And then I’ve always kind of gone from there.”

But the need to coach raw talented wrestlers isn’t as great as it once was. Skilled wrestlers are emerging from the middle school program ready to make their mark on the mat. So skilled, in fact, a change in program trajectory is necessary.

“Austin is more of a fine-tuner. He’s a technician. What I’ve always been able to do is take that raw first- or second-year wrestler and turn him into a pretty formidable guy by his junior or senior year,” said Olliff. “Austin is able to take the wrestler that is coming in as a potential district champion as a freshman, and maybe turn him into a college prospect.”

Do this, and the program enters a new era of dominance.

“I want the program to flourish, to become something where other teams are hoping for second because first place is so far away,” said Markee. “I don’t think we’re at that point, yet. But that’s kind of where I hope we’re headed.”

There’s little question Markee is being asked to fill big shoes. Olliff turned a floundering program into a state powerhouse.

Tim Larson is principal at Dallas High. But he is also the school’s long-time and former athletic director. He remembers the challenges that Olliff faced.

The Dallas wrestling program, and their banners from the high school program, pose in front of the Polk County Courthouse. Seven banners are for conference championships, three are for state runner-ups and two are for state championships. Tony Olliff, the now former head coach, said the secret of the team's success is its volunteers. / Submitted photo

“Before Tony’s arrival, the program was best described as fair to middling. There’s always been a splattering of great wrestlers here. But they didn’t win team titles,” said Larson.

That began to change when Olliff, a former student, returned to his roots. He graduated from Dallas High School in 1987, and wrestled for his father, Paul, who coached the Dragons from 1979-1992. The junior Olliff then coached here under Steve Lander in 1995, a former teammate of his from when they wrestled together at Oregon State.

Lander is well known nationally and statewide as the wrestling coach at Roseburg High School. Several coaches followed Lander after he left Dallas.

Olliff was coaching at McNary High School when he got the call in 2002. Dallas needed a new coach, and a new science teacher. The perfect combination to lure him away from the Keizer campus.

Olliff was home.

“I always had aspirations of winding up here. This is always where I wanted to be,” he said. “But Dallas athletics as a whole was pretty sorry. The wrestling team finished last in the Pac 9 the year before. We started to make changes.”

The next year the program produced a state champion: Brett Easton.

Then another milestone.

“We were three years in before I looked over at (assistant coach John Jones) one day before a duel and said, ‘hey, we have a full line up. From 103 pounds to heavyweight’,” said Olliff. “It took me three years just to get to that point.”

An even bigger thrill, the first district title, came in 2009.

“It was probably one of my top four or five thrills as a coach. It was very meaningful to me, just because this conference is very competitive,” said Olliff. “Often, at times when we were winning titles, it wasn’t uncommon for us, West Albany and Lebanon to all be in the top four at state. So winning that first league title was very reassuring that we were doing things the right way.”

Right way, indeed. The Dragons have won the district title in all but two years since 2009, Olliff said. They’ve also won two state titles and were second numerous times.

Success breeds success. There were 13 Dallas wrestlers in Olliff’s first year. This year, the number could exceed 60. Competition at practice is fierce.

“Tony has built such a program that the number one guy, well, there’s six, eight guys below him in that same weight class,” said Larson. “Well, you’ve got to go against that guy. And you’ve got to go against the wrestlers that are right below him. You’re just going to get better and better. Tony’s no nonsense about this kind of thing. It’s just, let’s get in, let’s get practice in, let’s go.”

Olliff is no nonsense about another thing. The Dallas wrestling program, beginning with the mat club, is for Dallas kids

When Olliff first got to Dallas, the mat club consisted of wrestlers who were bound for other high schools, such as Santiam Christian, Central and Willamina. He put a stop to that.

“Very few of these wrestlers were going to land here. I wanted the mat club to be a funnel (into our program),” said Olliff. “A system whereby if you grow up in Dallas, if you go to the Dallas mat club, you’re going to wrestle at Dallas High School. So that’s important to me.”

Community and school support has also grown over the years. When Paul Olliff coached here, his son said, the athletic director came to just one of his matches. That’s no longer the case.

“It’s not uncommon for me to see the superintendent, principal, vice principal, athletic director at away competitions, like away duels,” Olliff said. “So the support that I’ve experienced in my 22 years is vastly different then what my dad experienced when he was here. Wrestling was considered by some to be a place where you put troubled kids.”

That’s not the case any more. At least it’s not in Dallas.

(Editor’s note: This article, since edited, originally appeared in the Polk County Itemizer-Observer.)