By now, it’s easy to presume that longtime girls wrestling coach Donna “Coach Welch” Daniel has gotten used to trailblazing.
The first woman wrestling coach in the state of Texas. The first woman coach to guide a girls wrestling team to a state championship. The first woman to be inducted into the Texas High School Wrestling Coaches Association’s Hall of Honor.
Tack on the 52 qualifiers for the UIL Wrestling State Tournament, the nine state individual champions, the two team state titles and leading the first women’s wrestling to represent Texas at the Women’s Nationals in Fargo, North Dakota.
Despite achieving legendary status as a pioneer, Coach Welch handles the “first” title with grace. Instead of reveling in that fame, Daniel takes others into great consideration. Her overall mission all along, was to build up those she mentored into contributing members of the community.
That sense of duty, along with her humility, hard work and compassion, provided Daniel with another splendid feather in her cap of accolades.
Last Saturday at the Embassy Suites in Grapevine, Daniel was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame – Texas Chapter’s latest class of Lifetime Service to Wrestling Honorees. Enhancing that distinction is that Coach Welch is the first woman to join the Lone Star State’s prestigious wrestling rank.
On Sunday at the Polk Street Methodist Church Gym in Amarillo, the celebration continues with an Amarillo edition of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame – Texas Chapter Ceremony. The doors for the special event dedicated to Coach Welch open at 2 p.m., with the ceremony starting up at 2:30 p.m.
“It was hard for people to show up (to Grapevine),” said Daniel. “I understood, and I didn’t have my wrestling community and my wrestling family there. We’re going to renact (the ceremony). It’s mostly just to honor the people who got me where I am today. I want to thank and appreciate my wrestling, church, Tascosa and St. Andrews (Episcopal School) communities — all of the people who have been a part of what had been going for the last 27 years. I want all of them to know that I value them, as they are the reason why I’m here.”
Presenting Daniel with the plaque is Joe Stafford, who had coached the Tascosa wrestling team from 2008 to 2024.
“I can’t tell you how proud and excited I am for Donna,” Stafford said. “She is the type of person that never draws attention to herself, thinks of others and what needs to be done. She spoiled me and she is the type of coach that is always on top of things. She sure made my life easier and it’s great to see a person like her recognized. I am just thrilled and it’s well deserved. She does this for kids and she is truly special.”
Johnny Cobb, who coached the Rebels from 1988 to 2008, will present Coach Welch with the “Green Jacket.” Along with the large plaque, the verdant blazer is provided to Hall of Famer inductees.
Even though the road toward the Hall of Fame really began in 1999, but the wheels began to turn last year. It had been more than a decade, 2014 to be exact, that the Texas Chapter had brought in a new class of wrestling contributors.
“This (past) year, I believe it just got picked back up,” said Daniel. “I got an email that said that I had been nominated, and then they sent you a bunch of stuff that you had to fill out.”
After sending in a short application, some recommendation letters and several articles, Daniel received her official letter last November. More emails, announcing when and where the ceremony would take place, filed in come January and February.
Then, at the state tournament, Daniel was officially named to the Hall of Fame. At the ceremony last weekend, Daniel was provided with a reserved table, the commemorative plaque and the aforementioned jacket. There was also the induction speech, a special Hall of Fame ring and a little bit of bragging rights.
“I said that I got my green jacket before (Rory) McIlroy,” she said. “That was fun. It was a really nice ceremony. It was also a little bit different. There were a lot of the younger female coaches coming up to me and thanking me.”
They would say, ‘we remember when we were wrestling, and you were in the corner,'” continued Daniel. “‘We always thought that was so cool that there was a female, and we wished we had one.’ It was nice to hear that.”
Even before the UIL sanctioned boys and girls wrestling back in 1999, wrestling was a big deal at Tascosa. Initially, Daniel was only familiar with professional wrestling.
“All I’d ever watch was all the fun stuff on TV,” Daniel said. “I hadn’t really seen a real wrestling match. When you’re a teacher, you have students come and invite to go watch them. When they started up the next year, I just sat there and wonder what on earth was going on, but it was the greatest stuff ever.”
It wouldn’t be long before Cobb brought on Coach Welch as a sponsor, and later, his assistant coach. According to Daniel, Cobb was determined to start up the Lady Rebel wrestling program.
“I’d heard the rumors where all of the male coaches didn’t want to deal with girls,” Daniel said. “But coach Cobb said, ‘oh no, we’re doing it.’ He understood, as he coached his daughters in gymnastics and other things in the past. I said, ‘well, okay. I want to learn.'”
“So, everyday, I’d suit up and whatever move he’d teach them, he might use me to demonstrate,” she added. “By the time it was over, I was wrestling in practice. I’d tell (Cobb) ‘great practice, coach, thank you for letting me do that.'”
The work in the wrestling room quickly paid off, as the Tascosa girls lifted a team championship in 2002. Coach Welch recalled the chaos and solace from the Lady Rebels’ first team crown.
“It was before TrackWrestling, where they did everything on paper,” Daniel said. “At the end, there was a discrepancy in the scoring. Everyone was going off in their corners and refiguring everything. I knew nothing. I had no clue what they were doing. So, I was just sitting there, being nervous. I wasn’t going to believe it until they handed us the trophy.”
“I was exhausted from trying to worry about it all,” she continued. “When we did get the trophy, it was like, ‘wow, what a relief.’ That was probably one of the coolest times I can always remember.”
Another one of her favorite memories was her athletes.
“Having those groups of girls and their personalities, then watching them evolve in both sports and as females,” said Daniel. “It’s just so cool how they’re serving the community. That’s really rewarding to me. It’s a joy to still be a part of their lives, like getting invited to engagement parties, wedding and baby showers.”
Daniel has seen girls wrestling grow and gain more prominence over the years, moving from a back gym to being made part of the big show. She has also seen opportunities develop, where girls and guys can receive scholarships to wrestle at the intercollegiate level and move on to the Olympics.
While college wrestling has to contend with the world of NIL and the transfer portal, Daniel is glad to see wrestling spread to the smaller schools in Texas.
“It’s a joy to see so many more programs, even in smaller schools,” she said. “It’s so much harder (for them), because basketball is usually the sport, and there’s not as many people to spread around. But seeing programs like Henrietta and Happy, it’s good for them and for the sport.”
“(Wrestling) is a sport that includes so many people,” Daniel added. “It doesn’t matter if you’re the tiniest person or if you’re the biggest person. There’s a spot for you. No matter how big or little or thin or thick you are, you get to part of it. You are valued.”
Through it all, Coach Welch was part of it all. Her involvement in guiding young men and women was not limited to just wrestling. During her time at Tascosa, she would help coach football and serve as an assistant coach for the Amarillo Venom indoor football team.
In his years of working alongside Daniel for the scarlet and black, Stafford knows that the Hall of Fame honor is well deserved.
“She is the highest character person,” said Stafford. “She is the type of person you trust to look after your kids. She is an honest, hard working person and coach that came in at a unique time. She saw both sides of this world we live in now and she is very motherly to the kids and she was exactly what the young ladies always needed. She is always a breath of fresh air. She is something lost in our culture today.”
For any girl who is interested in becoming a grappler, Coach Welch had plenty of words of wisdom to share.
“Start early,” Daniel said. “Monica Allen and the Sisters on the Mat program does an outstanding job in molding the little ones in club and then getting into the high school program. You have to be dedicated and you have to have discipline at the table, in the classroom on the mat. It’s a lot, but it molds you into such a great human.”
You become more self confident, you have more courage, and it’s such a great sport to build character,” she added. “It’s starting to come full circle with our area coaches, who were wrestlers. It’s so neat to see some of them coming back, taking those positions and being role models for our young ladies.”