Oklahoma's Jack Spates Named Big 12 Coach Of The Year :: Nine-year wrestling mentor leads team to 2002 Big 12 Championship and NCAA third-place finish.

Oklahoma's Jack Spates Named Big 12 Coach Of The Year :: Nine-year wrestling mentor leads team to 2002 Big 12 Championship and NCAA third-place finish. Oklahoma's Jack Spates Named Big 12 Coach Of The Year

Nine-year wrestling mentor leads team to 2002 Big 12 Championship and NCAA third-place finish.

	Oklahoma Wrestling Head Coach Jack Spates was named Big 12 Coach of the Year.

NORMAN, Okla. - The University of Oklahma Head Coach Jack Spates was named the Big 12 Head Coach of the Year Wednedsay. Spates, in this ninth year, led Oklahoma to the 2002 Big 12 Championship as well as third place at the 2002 NCAA National Championship. The award is the second for the OU Head Coach. Spates was also named 1999 Big 12 Co-Head Coach of the Year. The award is selected on by the conference coaches.

The 2002 season brought Oklahoma wrestling its 23rd conference titles (second under Spates) as well as its highest finish in the National Championship since 1986 and its six All-Americans were the most since 1982.

Spates, OU's Head Coach since 1993, has developed 22 All-Americans and three national individual champions (John Kading, Byron Tucker and Michael Lightner) during his tenure at Oklahoma.

The Sooners have never finished out of the top 10 of the National Championships any season under Spates.

Spates, a member of the New York State and Western Pennsylvania Wrestling Hall of Fame and a collegiate national champion at Slippery Rock, has compiled 127-48-5 mark with the Sooners. Prior to Oklahoma, Spates coached at Cornell University where hed led the Big Red to five straight Ivy League titles and was named the 1992 and 1993 Eastern Intercollegiate Athletic Association Coach of the Year.