RAVENSWOOD - Former Ravenswood High School coach Dale Hinkle will be one of six inductees honored into the West Virginia Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame today at the Embassy Suites in Charleston.

Hinkle, who retired from teaching five years ago and stopped substituting last year, said he was shocked when he heard the news.

"Garry Bender (former Roane County coach) called me a couple days before I got the letter," said Hinkle, who passes his time now by delivering parts for the local NAPA store and by traveling and watching his grandchildren.

"This was a complete surprise. It's the greatest honor I have ever received. My gosh, I couldn't believe it."

Hinkle was an assistant coach for just one year and then led the Red Devil grapplers for two-and-a-half decades. During his tenure, 10 Ravenswood wrestlers won state championships while he produced 48 state placers and 94 state qualifiers.

Hinkle, who will be inducted with former coaches Joe Naternicola (Fairmont Senior), Russ Ward (Richwood) and Ernie Sparks (Cabell Midland) as well as ex-official Alex Skirpan and Wheeling sports writer Bill Van Horne, will have permanent plaques placed in their honor inside the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum in Stillwater, Okla.

"We've got our reservations," said Hinkle, a Lewis County and Glenville State College graduate who earned his master's degree in safety education at Marshall University in 1979.

"We're ready to go. My grandchildren wants to go and see it, so we are taking them. The whole family will be there."

Former mat official and current West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission wrestling rules interpreter Bill Welker recalled coach Hinkle on the mat.

"He coached every match as if he was wrestling the match," Welker said. "He put his heart and soul into motivating his wrestlers to perform to the best of their abilities. During each bout at states he would be very vocal about calls he did not like.

"I often felt he was really upset with me due to his intense coaching style. But, immediately following the end of a match he would approach me and either ask how my family was or he would say, "nice job, Bill.'"

Hinkle said the biggest change in wrestling he's noticed over the years is the difference in the talent on the mat, specifically noting it seemed like wrestlers are in two categories these days - "really, really good or really, really bad."

"It used to be you'd have a couple of good kids and then a whole bunch of average kids where the match could go either way and now it's not like that anymore," he said.

A veteran head coach who was respected by both his wrestlers and his peers, Hinkle witnessed a lot of weird things in his career.

One in particular was when one of his former wrestlers had a teammate weigh-in for him at the state wrestling tournament.

"It's very odd, but he had another boy weigh-in and he got caught, so I turned him in," Hinkle said, noting one of his other Red Devil wrestlers told him about it. "But this is the bad part about it. He told me that he was sorry. He told me he didn't need to do it and that he could've made weight.

"We walked back to the scales and he stepped up on it and made weight and I said, 'why did you do it' and he told me they just wanted to see if they could get away with it. Then he came back and won the state championship the next two years."

Anyone wishing to attend the event, which has a social hour and memorabilia display at 1 p.m. with dinner following at 2 p.m., can obtain more information at www.wvmat.com.