Dr. Phil Cronin has spent most of his life as a wrestler, coach, and official.

As an athlete, he split his high school career between Lake Braddock Secondary and Baltimore City College High Schools.

Beginning as a social studies teacher for Fairfax County Public Schools, Phil broke in as a head wrestling coach in 1992 at Marshall High School, then led the Chantilly High School program starting in 2002. Amassing 208 dual victories as a head coach, he earned several Coach of the Year honors before turning to a busy round of assistant coaching, currently at West Springfield High School.

He has good memories of those head-coaching years and of the many outstanding wrestlers in his room: Richie and Robbie Moutoux, Nick Gil, and David Friedman at Marshall; at Chantilly, Matt Dobson, John George, Sharif Grey, the Tenaglia brothers, the Carlson brothers, and his son, Sam Cronin.

Phil's contribution was only partly that of a seasonal coach. Except for his autumns as a freshman football coach (good recruiting ground for the winter sport), Coach Cronin could not stay away from year-round coaching of wrestling. He ran the Liberty Mat Club in the 1990s and the Concorde Mat Club in the 2000s for teenagers interested in off-season wrestling, and for pre-high school kids, the Chantilly Youth Association from 1997-2008. The results were often spectacular: between the two clubs, he won four state titles in freestyle or Greco-Roman.

He was also a coach for the Virginia National Team, which competed in tournaments such as the Dapper Dan Classic, the Copa Sparta tournament in Puerto Rico, national dual events, and the national championships at Fargo, ND. Never lacking in energy, Phil has found other ways beyond coaching to serve the wrestling community.

He has held various leadership positions: coaching director for VAWA from 1998-2008; national VAWA teams director from 2008-2013; and for many years the treasurer of the NVWCA.

Recently, he has enjoyed new perspectives on his sport, learning the ropes as an official and publishing a well-researched and lively History of Virginia Wrestling.

Recently, Phil has "checked another box," earning an Ed.D. from Virginia Tech.

Coach Cronin recognizes that his family has sustained him in his coaching career. Daughter Rachel can run a tournament by herself, and has worked as a table scorer several times at VHSL AAA state tournaments. Sam competed at all levels and started coaching himself, and Joey was an accomplished youth league wrestler. However, wife MK is the glue that holds everything together, from organizing sojourns to Fargo and holiday overnights, to embracing wrestlers as her own children.