Inductees
Dwayne Buth
Year: 2022
Gender: Male
About Dwayne:
He started wrestling as a five-year-old in 1976 for the San Diego Mighty Mites, and during his eight years with the youth club, Dwayne was Greco National Champion and 5th in Freestyle at the USA Nationals in Nebraska.
At Mount Miguel High School in Spring Valley, he was three times All-League, All-CIF Division and CIF State Qualifier. Buth was in the State finals twice, claiming a State Championship and High School All-American status in 1989. That summer, he was on the California team coached by Jim Root and Lynn Dyche in Japan.
Dwayne was a three-time PAC-10 Conference placer while wrestling at California State University-Fullerton from 1990-95. He qualified for the NCAA Championships twice, and he was a three-time California Open State Freestyle Champion.
Buth began coaching at Troy High School in Fullerton from 1995-97, and the teams won three Freeway League titles while sending four wrestlers to the CIF State Championships. The school had only one State Qualifier before his arrival.
He has been Head Coach at La Costa Canyon High School in San Diego County since 1997, and his teams have won 16 League Championships, with 122 wrestlers on first team in league. Dwayne’s teams have won four CIF Division Championships, with 230 individual CIF Placers including 45 individual CIF Champions. Buth has coached 70 CIF State Championship Qualifiers, including 25 San Diego Section Masters Champions. His 17 State Placers, including three State Champions among his seven State Finalists, helped six teams to place in the Top 25 at the State Championships.
The Jimmy Hamada Wrestling Tournament has evolved from a six-team dual format into a 64-man bracket with 50-plus teams from all over California and from Arizona, Colorado and Nevada under Dwayne’s direction. In 2007, he also started the Freshman So Cal Championships, now the region’s biggest freshman tournament. The SWWC (Summer Wrestlers = Winter Champions) summer camps started in 1998 have attracted wrestlers from throughout California and from four other states.
Buth was selected as the California Coach of the Year in 2015, and he has been San Diego Section Coach of the Year and LCC High School Coach of the Year multiple times. He serves on the Section’s State Advisory Board for Wrestling and on the State Advisory Board’s State Referee Selection Committee. His wrestlers have gone to Cal Poly, Stanford, California Baptist University, Fullerton, Princeton, Missouri, Columbia and Lehigh.