National Wrestling Hall of Fame inductees Robert DeBerry and his son Kory were officially introduced Wednesday by Mountain View High School as the girls and boys wrestling coach, respectively, starting this winter.
The elder DeBerry, who holds the state record with 15 boys championships won as Sunnyside’s coach from 1993 to 2011, was the boys coach at his alma mater Tucson High from 2011 to last season.
Kory, a four-time state champion wrestler at Sunnyside before graduating from there in 2011, helped his father coach at Tucson High. He wrestled at Arizona State and Grand Canyon after graduating from Sunnyside.
His brother Kyle was also a four-time state champion at Sunnyside and is now an agent as CEO of Next Generation Talent Management based out of Phoenix.
Kyle’s daughter Alina, an accomplished youth wrestler, will attend Mountain View starting this fall as a freshman and will be coached by her grandfather.
The elder DeBerry’s 657 career dual-match victories entering the 2024-25 season were the second-most in the state’s history, trailing only Safford’s Herman Andrews (759).
DeBerry, 64, was the head wrestling coach at Canyon del Oro five years before becoming an assistant coach to Richard Sanchez at Sunnyside in 1992.
DeBerry, who is also inducted in the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame, was named by the National Wrestling Coaches Association’s national coach of the year in 2004.
DeBerry wrestled at Tucson High and graduated from the school in 1979. He went on to wrestle at Pima College (which still had a program at the time) and became a 142-pound region champion while studying criminal justice before shifting to physical education.
He earned a bachelor’s of science degree in secondary education at Arizona in 1987 while being a monitor at CDO.
After brief assistant coaching stints with Pima, Salpointe and CDO, he became the head coach of the Dorados in 1988.
When DeBerry left Sunnyside for Tucson High, he began working in a mentoring program at the school and also helped coach the freshman football team. He wanted to devote more time to watching his sons compete at Arizona State.
Shortly after his move to Tucson High, the wrestling coaching position opened, and former athletic director Will Kreamer hired DeBerry.
The elder DeBerry also later became the athletic director at Tucson while continuing to coach wrestling.
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