Marple Newtown High School Names New Wrestling Coach

NEWTOWN SQUARE– had a highly successful wrestling program last year, and next season promises to be even better for the Tigers. Not just because of the returning talent Marple Newtown will have, but the school has tapped Marple Newtown teacher and former Shippensburg University wrestling coach Don Tabar as the Tigers’ new head wrestling coach.

Tabar takes over for Mike Selletti, . Tabar inherits a team that went 14-1 overall and 10-1 in the Central League under Selletti last year.

The Tigers will return a solid nucleus of Ken Smith, Tom Antista, Matt Wilkinson and Jason Rinaldi next year.

In Tabar, Marple Newtown is getting a first-rate, big-league coach with plenty of experience. He was the head coach of Shippensburg for eight years, and is the most successful coach in Shippensburg wrestling history.

During his tenure at Shippensburg, Tabar developed 16 All-Americans, 25 national qualifiers, seven region champions, four national runners-up, and a national champion.

He was also named National Wrestling Coaches Association Coach of the Year.

“We are glad we found a candidate who not only can meet the necessary time requirements, but is also a highly qualified former collegiate coach and a teacher in our building,” Marple Newtown Athletic Director Dennis Reardon said.

Tabar wrestled for 21 years, from junior high school to the open amateur national level after college. He posted a 1,000-200 record, finishing among the top 12 at the U.S. Open Freestyle Championships twice and was an Eastern National place winner in 2000 and 2001.

A 1998 graduate of Shippensburg, Tabar earned his masters degree in Educational Administration from Shippensburg in 2002 and in June 2010, he earned his Principal K-12 certificate from the state of Pennsylvania.

An important component of hiring Tabar is that he is a science teacher at Marple Newtown High School so he’s in the building.

A teacher in Philadelphia, Selletti ran a highly successful wrestling program at Marple Newtown. In two years, he turned the wrestling program around. But Selletti, according to Reardon, would routinely arrive at Marple Newtown at around 4:15 p.m. when practice would begin at 2:45 p.m., right after school was over.

Selletti chose not to respond when contacted by Patch in the original story.

Marple Newtown opted to go in another direction and hired Tabar, who was previously an assistant coach at Downingtown East High School.

Tabar has been coaching since 1991. His stops include Niceville High School in Florida from 1991-1994, and North Hagerstown High School in 1995. He was also an assistant at Big Spring High School in Newville, PA, during the 1998-1999 academic year and head coach of Big Spring Junior High School from 1999 to 2001.