La Grande’s Klel Carson named National Coach of the Year
By Joe Hathaway on Tuesday, January 16th, 2024 in Northeastern Oregon News
LA GRANDE – La Grande High School’s boys wrestling coach Klel Carson has more hardware to add to his already Hall of Fame career.
Carson is one of twenty-three high school coaches from across the country have been selected as 2022-23 National Coaches of the Year by the NFHS Coaches Association.
The NFHS, which has been recognizing coaches through an awards program since 1982, honors coaches in the top 10 girls sports and top 10 boys sports (by participation numbers), Winners of NFHS awards must be active coaches during the year for which they receive their award.
From the NFHS: For 31 years, Klel Carson has led the La Grande (Oregon) High School boys wrestling program with the philosophy to “strive to teach and model for young athletes how to become champions in life, great parents and great people.” On the mat, Carson has coached 28 individual state champions and 328 state qualifiers. La Grande has won the Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA) team wrestling championship four times under Carson, including back-to-back titles in 2022 and 2023. His teams also have won the OSAA state dual-team championship three times. Carson has twice been named Oregon’s Class 4A Coach of the Year and was the state’s wrestling Coach of the Year in 2023. In 1996, Carson was inducted into the La Grande High School Hall of Fame. He also has 28 years’ experience coaching middle school football and another 15 years coaching youth baseball and softball.
