Medical Lake School District 1969-2001 Inland Empire Wrestling Officials Association 1974 to present Rich Tschirgi graduated from Eastern Washington University in 1968 and started his teaching career in the Medical Lake School District in 1969. In 1974 he began coaching at the middle school level where he coached multiple sports for the next 21 years. At the same time he began his officiating career with the Inland Empire Wrestling Officials Association in Spokane. He retired from education in 2001 and currently continues his work with Wrestling Officials Association. Tschirgi coached many sports at the middle school level including girls softball, girls basketball, track and field, wrestling and football where his teams accumulated a record of 148 wins and 20 loses. 68 of his middle school wrestlers went on to place at the Wrestling State Championships including 7 wrestlers who won state championships. In addition to his successful coaching career, Tschirgi has been a leader for wrestling officials statewide as well as his local association. During his 44 years as a wrestling official he has held many positions of leadership for the Inland Empire Association including president, vide-president, board member and assigning secretary. At the state level he has served on the Washington Officials Association Wrestling committee and has been one of the Mat Classic Officials Evaluators and served the past three years as the lead evaluator. He has been honored by the Frontier League as their Wrestling Referee of the Year and he is also organizes officials for the Spokane area wrestling tournaments. Rich served in the military where he was honored with the Drill Sergeant of the Year Award and the Armed Forces Person of the Year. He also is a graduate of the Sergeants Major Academy. As a military history enthusiast he has completed seven courses from the Freedom Foundation in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Tschirgi currently resides in Spokane with his wife Sheela Steele. They have 5 adult children, Mike Tschirgi (46), Matt Tschirgi (44), Scott Tschirgi (42), Adam Steele (37) and Natalie Steele (34). They have 9 grandchildren and three of them are wrestling.