close

CBH wrestling coach Tim Wash pins 500th win

CBH wrestling coaches

Feb. 13 marked the first round of playoffs for high school wrestlers, and Cane Bay High’s wrestling team had a match up in Myrtle Beach against Socastee High.

Earlier this month, head wrestling coach Tim Wash landed his 499th coaching victory after Cane Bay High beat Goose Creek High 68-9. The win also secured the team with a runner-up finish in AAAAA Region VII and landed them in the playoffs.

Wash said the team knew Socastee was going to be a formidable opponent – the school recently won their region in Myrtle Beach – but Cane Bay came out with a score of 48 to 22.

That’s 500 wins for Wash.

Wash wrestled in high school on James Island at what used to be Fort Johnson High (prior to the merger with James Island High), and he attributes his success in the sport to his perseverance on the team starting in ninth grade.

“We would win matches…and I would be the only guy to get beat. Every time – my whole freshman year,” he said.

Wash kept with it and his senior year, he was the state champion.

“I see what it’s like to start and not be good at it, and not quit,” he said.

This is wisdom that he passes on to his own wrestlers today: “Stay with something, and work hard at it…and you can be successful.”

Being able to relate to that philosophy has helped him through the years, he said.

Wash started coaching football, and later wrestling, at James Island High and before moving on to Lugoff-Elgin, Rock Hill and Berkeley High. He came to Cane Bay in 2011.

“Berkeley County has been the best district I have ever worked in,” he said, adding that he has received a lot of support from Cane Bay High itself. “You can just be yourself. You don’t have to be something you’re not.”

Wash considers 500 to be “just a number”…but it is also a lot of numbers.

Bottom line: it is all for the students.

“I definitely can attribute the successes to the awesome kids I’ve coached,” he said.

Throughout his coaching career, Wash said he has taken pride in teaching the players important lessons they encounter while on the team – “mainly that when things get tough, you don’t duck your head, you pick yourself up and you move forward.”

They are lessons, he said, that will help them later on in life.

“It’s not just about winning,” he said.

Wash coaches alongside Aaron Hynick and Bill Parrish. Wash and his wife reside on James Island.