Before he became know as “The Father of Washington State High School Wrestling” for his decades of coaching, sports administration and for starting the state high school state tournament, Bill Tomaras was a father to three wrestling boys.

The youngest of them, Randall, now in his 70s, remembers a time when he nearly gave up on the sport. A junior at Sehome High in Bellingham with an unblemished record, he went into a match with another highly-ranked lightweight. Taking advice from his coach instead of listening to his gut, Tomaras lost the match — and promptly quit.

His father came to him asking why he’d quit.

“I’m only doing this to please you,” Randall said.

“If that’s the reason,” Bill responded, “you probably should quit.”

A week later, with backing of a near-unanimous vote from his teammates — the lone “no” vote came from Tomaras’ backup at that weight class — he was back on the team, on his way to a fourth-place finish at the state tourney.

“If I would have quit,” Tomaras said, decades later, “I never would have done these other things.”

These things now include five decades of coaching and promotion of wrestling that has earned Tomaras induction into the Washington Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

The 74-year-old Tomaras, along with 10 others, will receive honors and their National Wrestling Hall of Fame induction in Federal Way on Saturday, May 4.

Photo courtesy of Randy Tomaras / Young Randy Tomaras, right receives honors from his father William at a wrestling tourney.

Inductees include Jim Chapman, Terry Cochran, Doug Cowan, Dick Ford, Peter Hulswit (deceased), Scott Jones, Bob Lynn, Mark Perry and Lee Reichert, U.S. Army Sgt. Justin Norton (posthumously) with the “Medal of Courage” and Tomaras for “Lifetime Service.”

These individuals, noted longtime association Jim Meyerhoff of the Hall of Fame’s Washington State Chapter, have given “countless hours of their time instilling young people with the skills needed to succeed in all areas of life” and will be permanently recognized at the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Tickets can now be ordered online at ticketleap.events/tickets/wa-nwhof/2024-induction-ceremony.

“I’m honored to receive the award,” Tomaras said. “I have a lot of friends in the Hall of Fame, and so is my dad.”

‘Runt of the litter’

To say Randall Tomaras was born into a wrestling family is an understatement. His father Bill, who would grow into his legendary “father” moniker with other stops on the way, had parlayed a successful collegiate wrestling career (finishing third at the NCAAs as a senior while earning a political science degree at the University of Illinois) into a series of coaching positions.

Beginning with his Washington State College first team in 1948, which went unbeaten in dual meets, the senior Tomaras compiled a 48-8 dual meet record, and his teams captured five Pacific Coast Intercollegiate titles during his tenure and had 21 PCI champions. Along with promotion of the sport through clinics for coaches and athletes, he also initiated the Washington State High School Wrestling Tournament in 1953, featuring eight teams and 60 wrestlers, and served as the tournament director until 1959.

“It was kind of expected,” Randy said in a recent interview, with a chuckle. “I was kind of the runt of the family. I wasn’t as strong as my brothers.”

He recalled that his first “job” was pinning ribbons on wrestlers, who didn’t earn trophies at that time.

Despite wrestling at the lightest weight class (103), Randy went into the family sport and excelled. His father took a position coaching at Western Washington University in 1961 and the athletic director position a year later, and Randy earned his prep wrestling medals at Sehome High.

“Wrestling is so different; there are so many qualities you learn: the mental toughness, the dedication — it’s called the toughest sport,” Randy said. “At first, it was just trying to please my dad.”

With a camera slung over his shoulder, Randy would connect with his father by photographing games and matches.

“If I wanted to see my dad, I’d have to shoot the events,” Tomaras said years later.

Like his father, Tomaras caught the wrestling coaching bug and served as an assistant for a number of highly-regarded programs: the 1970 regional champs from Sehome, the regional champs at Mariner High in 1973 who sent nine grapplers to state, the 1974 Ellensburg High team that placed third at state, and the 1981 South Kitsap High team that placed second at state, earning Tomaras National Assistant Coach of the Year for Wrestling USA.

Along with officiating wrestling for six years, Tomaras was a Washington state freestyle team leader for several successful international teams, and it was during trip to Germany in the late 1970s when, as he put it, “I kind of got the travel bug.”

World touring

For much of the 1980s Tomaras worked with representatives from foreign nations to establish connections through wrestling; he spearheaded efforts to get China and the Soviet Union to participate in the Elite (15- to 18-year-olds) World Championships for first time, and two years later brought teams from Washington state and California to be the first wrestling programs to visit China. He also organized numerous cultural exchanges for youths, particularly in what was known at the Soviet Union.

Artwork courtesy of Randy Tomaras / One of many publications Randy Tomaras helped establish to promote wrestling throughout the country.

He also sought to help better organize wrestling in the Pacific Northwest, founding the Washington State High School Wrestling Coaches Association in 1975.

Tomaras, whose keen eye led to further opportunities to promote wrestling with photography skills he developed starting in high school, also led the charge to spread the word to the nation and world about the benefits and exploits of wrestling from high school to college and beyond. Already a publisher of wrestling magazines by the 1970s, he created full-color national wrestling programs in the early 1980s, and with Meyerhoff published Washington Wrestling Annual Reports.

Following his work on the 1990 Goodwill Games, Tomaras spent a half-dozen years in international relations, and while he has submitted numerous photographs and articles for Wrestling USA starting in 2000, Tomaras had stepped away from direct promotion of wrestling, until 2018. It was then that he started a new goal: to reestablish wrestling at the college level in Washington state.

Reestablishing a collegiate sport

As a high school wrestler in Aberdeen, Steve Chinn knew well the impact of the Tomaras family, and had at times crossed paths with Randy now and again.

“He and I are really about the same age (but) I never wrestled him and I never met him until way later, as a coach,” Chinn said.

But it wasn’t until a few years ago, when Chinn was in another go-around as a Sequim High assistant wrestling coach, that Tomaras — now a Sequim resident — walked in to a practice and the two struck up a friendship.

“Tomaras ends up in Sequim? I realized [we] had this resource,” said Chinn, who was backing up the then head coach Charles “Chad” Cate, who’s since passed away.

“Randy and I are pretty compatible,” Chinn said. “[Randy] would drop into the practice to take team pictures. The next thing you know, he’s on the mat showing a move.”

Tomaras used his connections in 2021 to bring the first of what’s become a multi-year tradition of bringing in Gene Mills, the former collegiate and international wrestling champion, for a week-long wrestling camp in Sequim.

Mills, speaking from in between NCAA tourney matches in Kansas City, said he first connected with Tomaras in his time on the international circuit and praised Tomaras for his promotion of the sport.

“For me, the sports going in a much better direction,” Mills said.

“Randy’s done nothing but promote our sport. He gave back to the sport in a major way.”

Photo courtesy of Randy Tomaras/Gov. Jay Inslee’s office Gov. Jay Inslee, center, signs Substitute Senate Bill No. 5687 in April 2023 — legislation called the Charles Cate II Act, that bolsters the creation and support of postsecondary wrestling grant programs. Joining Inslee are Cate’s son Charley and wife Renee. Behind Inslee is primary bill sponsor Sen. Kevin Van De Wege and Sequim wrestling advocate Randall Tomaras, along with wrestlers and other wrestling advocates.

With backing from state legislator Kevin Van De Wege, Tomaras in 2018 started a drive in Olympia to fund and promote collegiate wrestling, a sport most Washington state colleges and universities had dropped for various reasons.

Wrestlers with any kind of decent shot at a scholarship, he reasoned would have to go out of state, and many of those wrestlers wouldn’t come back to bring their expertise to Washington prep programs. Further, he said, with fewer individuals going to to wrestle in college high school coaches with college experience.

A high number of those who wrestle at colleges and universities, he noted, go on to coach and teach the sport.

“We need coaches in the school system,” Tomaras said, “and they only come from colleges.”

With an initial $400,000 grant, the push for growing collegiate programs is producing its first harvest, Tomaras noted: Last year, Washington State University, one of his father’s schools, saw 50 in their program, with 35 at Evergreen State College and a handful at Big Bend.

Tomaras said he isn’t sure how much more he’ll be involved in promoting wrestling in the coming years, but there seems to be plenty to celebrate when he accepts his National Hall of Fame “Lifetime Service” award, and from the Washington State Wrestling Coaches Association, he’ll be awarded the Dr. William Tomaras Award, created in honor of his own father. (Fittingly, his father and mother Dolly are both past recipients of this award.)

“We’re both in our 70s,” said Chinn, “and you find that you have to contribute; it’s payback. We sense that.”