Coaches

Coach Heffernan, 33, began his wrestling career in the 80's when he was in elementary school in the Elyria YMCA youth program. His family moved to the Chicago area in 1987, and, later, he was a 4-year athlete in football, wrestling, and baseball at Palatine High School. There, under the tutelage of coach Jerry O'Brien, he qualified for the state tournament twice and finished his senior season (1994) as the state Runner-Up in the 160 lbs. division compiling a record of 42-3 and 30 pins that year. In the summer of 1994, he qualified for the Team Illinois freestyle squad and competed in Fargo at the Junior National Tournament. He went on to wrestle for Harry Houska and Joel Greenlee at Ohio University. As a Bobcat, Coach Heffernan, a captian, placed in the MAC Tournament three times and qualified for the NCAA Championships in 1999 at Penn State University. He also played baseball at Ohio for two seasons as a catcher. He graduated with a degree in English Education in 1999 and moved back to Chicago to began his teaching and coaching career at his high school alma matter, Palatine High School. He stayed for the next five years, and, in that time, earned his masters degree in creative writing from Columbia College of Chicago. Then, in 2005, he moved to the Columbus area with his family; he taught at Whitehall-Yearling High School and coached with head coach David Grant at Westerville North High School for one year before being hired as the head coach at Delaware Hayes High School in 2006. He currently lives in Delaware with his daughters Madison (5) and Brenna (2) and, besides coaching, he continues to teach sophomore English, coordinates the Academic Center, and is the yearbook advisor at Hayes High School.

Links:

Palatine High School Wrestling

Ohio University Wrestling

Ohio University Baseball

Columbia College of Chicago Fiction Writing Department

Mr. Heffernan's School WebPage