Chatham University Athletic Director Leonard Trevino recently named Pat Durocher and Bryan Pflanz to be the head coaches of the new women’s and men’s wrestling programs, respectively.

“They have an opportunity to build a program from scratch, and I think they’re excited about that,” Trevino said. Both coaches will begin developing rosters for the upcoming academic year.

Wrestling has grown massively, not only in Pennsylvania but in the NCAA, as well. Women’s wrestling is one of the fastest growing sports in the NCAA with 110 schools hosting teams in 2025-26, compared to only 76 in 2023-24, according to the NCAA and Formula 4 Media.

“Western Pennsylvania has one of the highest participation rates for wrestling, high school wrestling, of anywhere in the country,” Trevino said. “We saw an opportunity and a chance there.”

High school girls wrestling in the state expanded from just one team in March 2020 to more than 100 in 2023, according to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

In conjunction with the new wrestling teams, Athletic Annex is in development at Chatham Eastside and slated to be completed for the 2026-27 academic year.

“I’m just grateful to be at a program where we’re fully supported and being given everything we need to be successful,” Durocher said.

Durocher has been coaching for 15 years, including as a high school head coach and most recently as the head coach at Siena Heights University. His long history of leading women’s wrestling started early for him.

“I always knew in the back of my head, as well as I had a couple of girls on my high school team, stepping into a mentor role for them,” Durocher said. “There’s no better place to start a sport like women’s wrestling than at a college with such a history of women’s leadership because I feel like the sport of wrestling goes hand in hand with leadership.”

Durocher has big goals for himself and his athletes and has already felt supported by Chatham’s athletic department.

Pflanz is invested, too, and wants to do for his athletes what his coaches did for him.

“I feel like my wrestling coaches were such big mentors to me,” Pflanz said. “Not just helping me navigate wrestling, just helping me navigate getting internships, getting jobs and just being a really good human.”

Pflanz has served as an assistant coach for Elizabethtown College, where he has been a part of its rising top-25 program since 2019. His love for wrestling stems from the creative aspect.

“The combination of it being both an individual and team sport, that all of my success, all of my failures were on myself. But at the same time, I was always contributing to a team goal,” Pflanz said.

For the start of a new program, both coaches have their aims and goals set for their athletes.

“I think the biggest thing is going to be really on creating good relationships with the guys I bring in,” said Pflanz, “making sure that they’re setting intentional shortterm goals.”

Durocher wants to bring in athletes on his wavelength.

“I always set big goals for myself and my athletes, and I want them to set big goals for themselves. So, we’re being very intentional on the type of student-athlete that we talk to and are bringing in.”

As for the expansions at the Athletic Annex, both coaches feel passionately about the opportunities the new facilities will bring their teams