USA Wrestling Coach’s Corner: Scott Honecker (Mass./Conn.)

Photo: Scott Honecker (left) coaching at the UWW U23 World Championships in Albania.

Editor’s Note: In conjunction with USA Wrestling, WIN Magazine spotlights four coaches or officials from around the nation in each issue. This article originally appeared in WIN’s Volume 31 Issue 8, which printed on May 13, 2025. Click here to view WIN’s subscription options (Print/Digital/Combo). Subscribe by July 24 to receive WIN’s Volume 31 Issue 10 Fargo Commemorative Issue by mail by mail, or start a Digital Subscription to get the Fargo Issue and access to all Past Archived Monthly Issues dating back to 2011 including all the USA Wrestling Coach’s Corner features. 

By Tristan Warner

Saying ‘yes’ to opportunities has been the story of Scott Honecker’s life. It is also his best advice for coaches, and even the many student-athletes he mentors on a yearly basis.

Head coach at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. since the 2012-13 season, he also serves as the national team director for Connecticut USA Wrestling. More recently, he has picked up steam in the Greco-Roman coaching scene, as Honecker will lead Team USA at the 2025 U20 World Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria in August.

He has taken a winding path, at least geographically, to get where he is now, but for Honecker, taking advantage of opportunities, no matter where they take him, has been the recipe.

“My competitive career concluded, and I wanted to continue in wrestling,” explained Honecker. “It wasn’t realistic for me to be decorated on the Senior level, so I started coaching because I really was mostly motivated to stay with the sport.

“I have been able to make a life and a career in this sport without having the competitive accolades of  many of my peer coaches. If you are passionate about wrestling and helping young people, it doesn’t matter if you had a medal around your neck.”

Fresh out of Ithaca College, Honecker’s first coaching gig took him to the Tar Heel State, where he served as varsity coach at J.H. Rose High School in Greenville, N.C. in 2005. He spent six years at the helm of the Rampants, at a time when wrestling in the state of North Carolina was still in an emerging status.

“North Carolina was sort of coming out of the dark,” Honecker recalled. “Super 32 had just started on two mats. The best thing about being a high school coach in North Carolina as a 22-year-old was that, through USA Wrestling, there was a lot of opportunity. I was able to break into roles that, if I was in a more established state, would have taken me longer to earn my way into.”

This is when Honecker got involved with coaching the national teams. He was named North Carolina State Coach of the Year in 2009 by USA Wrestling.

“When I was ready to transition to a full-time coaching role, doing things in Fargo helped make me a more realistic candidate.”

Upon his move back to the northeast region, Honecker did not take long to get back to his roots by coaching and mentoring younger student-athletes, simultaneously, at the state level.

“I was reached out to by Connecticut,” Honecker explained. “I am three-and-a-half hours from Boston but just two hours from Hartford, Conn., so I am actually closer to the population base in Connecticut.

“We have seen one-thousand percent growth in the state, from 11 participants to at least 100 for the first time in Fargo. The growth of women’s wrestling has contributed.”

With so much knowledge and experience coaching across several age levels, Honecker is like an encyclopedia of mentorship principles. His advice for other coaches is plentiful, but it all ties back to a few core principles: understanding the value of competition, cultivating positive relationships with others, and the sport itself, as well as taking opportunities.

“Being less outcome-oriented and more focused on helping young men understand the value of competition is key. We wrestle any DI team that will wrestle us, to emphasize the firefight is far more what we come for. We come to wrestle, not to win.

“Philosophically, being in the fight and taking advantage of every opportunity to test yourself is far more valuable than any accolade. Shine the light not on the podium but the active combat itself. That is the cornerstone I try to get through to all of our athletes.

“Focus on a young man’s relationship with the sport and the competition. Eliminate the nerves. We want every kid who spends time under our leadership to develop a relationship with the sport that persists, as a wrestler, coach, or referee.

“Our sport needs and relies on fans and observers of wrestling. I want everyone who comes through a four-year experience with me to engage with the sport and continue to love it.”

As far as personal relationships go, Honecker takes his role as a collegiate coach more seriously than just teaching technique and positioning. He guides by, in a loose sense, the in loco parentis idea, a Latin term used in legal terminology meaning “in place of a parent.”

“I don’t send them home at night to their mom and dad. You are much more inextricably linked to every aspect of their life as a college coach. It sets the stage for richer and deeper relationships. Stay involved in their lives after they are no longer formally your athlete.”

As far as opportunities are concerned, just as Honecker preaches to his student-athletes, saying ‘yes’ to passions and pursuits has expanded his horizons greatly. His involvement in Greco-Roman is a prime example.

“As a coach, participant and observer, I’ve always preferred the international styles. I participated in Greco at the age-group levels but was not decorated. Greco-Roman is foundational to who I am as a wrestling person. I continued to approach every opportunity as it presented itself.

“When I joined with Connecticut, they rarely sent a Greco delegation to Fargo, and with me coming on board, that was one of the conditions. We started bringing local athletes to state and national level Greco events. My dad used to say, ‘the best ability is availability.’ Find a way to get out there. Opportunities lead to more opportunities.”

Honecker, who has a middle school-aged son, has also learned the important lesson of knowing when not to be a wrestling coach. In fact, he has reserved those duties for Joe Uccellini and his Curby Training Center, which WIN featured in a USA Wrestling Coach’s Corner article within Volume 31, Issue 5. Honecker and Uccellini roomed together at the Olympic Training Center for 40 consecutive days years ago and have remained close.

“I focus on my relationship with my son and his relationship with the sport. The advice I would give is don’t try to be your son’s coach. Use your knowledge and resources to find someone who will foster a love for the sport.

“I chose Joe because I had a high confidence that, at the end of the season, Joe would have him loving wrestling more at the end of the practice than at the beginning. Winning will take care of itself. Foster the relationship of him developing that lifelong love for the sport.”