Cashing In Wrestling’s Colorful Spokesman Goes To The Mat One Last Season

Cash Stone has been wrestling’s goodwill ambassador for nearly half a century.

With roots as a wrestler in high school and college, he has coached the highly successful Mead High School program since 1959.

He promoted the sport as a consultant and bit actor in the movie “Vision Quest.”

He has even given wrestling a colorful language of its own.

Stone will retire after the current season and the Greater Spokane League will be the worse for it.

“Cash became an example, a person you wanted to be like,” said 1966 Mead wrestler and former University High coach Rick Sicilia. “He always made you feel good. I don’t know that Cash looks back on anything and doesn’t find a positive.”

Stone’s upbeat nature was instilled by his parents. The competitive fire in his belly, he says, was ignited by his red-haired, Irish mother.

It was stoked by a succession of outstanding coaches during wrestling’s infancy in the Skagit Valley of Western Washington, and continued at Washington State.

The flame burned brightly at Mead where fine-edged wrestlers have been honed on the forge of Stone.

He has crafted eight individual state champions and countless placers, two state team titles, 11 Greater Spokane League championships and five second-place finishes since 1977.

“It’s not because of his organizational skills,” said Mead teaching contemporary and track coach Gary Baskett. “Cash has a charisma that’s ongoing. He’s an up guy and when everything is up it gleans people.”

Now, after 38 years and still on the mat giving hands-on instruction to his kids, Stone says it is time to turn his tools over to another blacksmith.

Indeed, it will take two men to replace him when the second Mead District high school, Mount Spokane, opens next year.

“I’ll miss it,” Stone admitted. “But at the same time, I’ll enjoy seeing the Panthers and Wildcats do well in competition - and they will.”

When Stone began wrestling, the sport was still an adjunct to high school boxing smokers, conducted in elevated rings with ropes surrounding them.

“Once in a while, when you rolled around, you wound up on the floor,” he said.

From his first match, Stone says he loved the feel of the contact-combat and the discipline wrestling demanded. He lost only one high school match while a student at Burlington-Edison High. He was the 1958 Pacific Coast 130-pound champion under coach Bill Tomaras at WSU in 1958.

“I was a stump-farm kid with good physical strength and built close to the ground,” he said. “My size was a benefit to me.”

Going to WSU on a dare from the coach, Stone says he “got my fanny kicked. Bill was such a fabulous guy and good technician, I knew I’d get better.”

He participated in Tomaras’ clinics, and when hired at Mead in 1959, brought a background to Spokane that few others had in the city’s wrestling infancy.

“When I was in school,” said Sicilia, “he was probably THE technician in the area. He had college experience and knew more than lots of other coaches.”

All schools, regardless of size, were lumped into one category. Cheney and Pullman were the powers. Mead was still a Northeast A League school.

“My goal was to get good enough to beat Cheney,” whose coach hadn’t wrestled, said Stone. “I figured I could show things the other guys couldn’t do.”

Four things, says Stone, helped turn a growing Mead High into a league power. With the help of Leta Walters, a youth wrestling program was begun around 1970.

His first state champion and national collegiate placer, Dan Hensley, put on a clinic teaching skills that Stone incorporated.

Then the Greater Spokane League formed in 1976-77.

“It was nine teams together, no travel, huge turnouts and fan interest for duals,” he said.

Mead wrestlers flourished under the admonitions of their coach, who has enjoyed inordinately good health. In 38 years, the only two practice days he has missed were while making “Vision Quest.”

Because he had to work hard for his success, he said he was able to be patient with kids in the same boat. He made an effort to be understanding and not paint wrestlers into a corner.

The youth program brought more technically sound wrestlers into the Mead practice area.

Two-time state champion Steve Meuer, a 1975 Mead graduate, who transferred from Indiana, says Stone was more into the mental than technical aspects of the sport.

Over time, says Stone, he has mellowed in his coaching approach.

“I became slower to jump on a kid’s case and quicker to praise,” he said. “I’d build off each positive year to the next.”

As for his unique wrestling vocabulary, Stone says it was enriched by stealing liberally from his experiences, friends and acquaintances.

The 148-pound weight class is 148s in Stone jargon. Good wrestlers are “tougher than a boiled owl.” A big match is “for all the money, marbles and chalk … as you well know, my friend.”

Stone explains, wearing his ever-present grin, “Because you react quickly in wrestling, it’s easier to come up with something quick to say. The civilians don’t know what you’re talking about.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: TRIBUTE TO CASH A gathering of former Mead wrestlers and tribute to retiring Cash Stone is being planned for Dec. 28 during the Mead Tournament of Champions. “Before the finals we’re going to have a little tribute to Cash,” said 1966 graduate Rick Sicilia. “People will talk about Cash and his impact on their lives.” A special T-shirt is being made commemorating Stone’s 38 years as coach of the Panthers. Afterward, said Sicilia, wrestlers will gather for a reception and a chance to mix and reminisce. “We call all who have wrestled at Mead to show up that night,” said Sicilia.