Kenny Monday with Becka Leathers at Final X 2019 (photo courtesy of Tony Rotundo; WrestlersAreWarriors.com)In last-October of 2021, news spread that Morgan State would revive their wrestling program and become the only current Historically Black College and University (HBCU) institute at the DI level to offer wrestling. Since then, little news regarding the program has been released. That changed today as 1998 Olympic Gold Medalist Kenny Monday was named the team's head coach.
Monday is a two-time Olympic medalist (silver in 1992) and a two-time world finalist (gold in 1989). Since then he's held various coaching positions, most recently as the head coach of SPIRE Institute, a high school in Ohio. Before that, Monday was the head coach of the Tar Heel Wrestling Club. Under his watch, the program had Jordan Oliver win the 2020 Olympic Team Trials and Macey Kilty, who was injured in the finals.
Before his success on the international scene, Monday won a national title for Oklahoma State at 150 lbs in 184. In each of the previous two seasons, Monday fell to Nate Carr (Iowa State) in the national finals. He is a member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and became the first Black wrestler to win an Olympic gold medal.
In addition to Monday's accolades, his son's have also found success on the wrestling mat. Kennedy was a four-time national qualifier for North Carolina, while Quincy was a 2022 NCAA runner-up for Princeton, with another year of eligibility remaining.
Morgan State previously fielded a wrestling team, but that was disbanded after the 1996-97 season. The program has been restored after a huge donation from the HBCU Wrestling initiative, one that aims to re-establish wrestling at multiple HBCU's.
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