Jason Christenson received the first Bob Siddens High School Coaching Excellence Award.

The award is presented annually to an Iowa high school wrestling coach who exhibits the high standards that Bob Siddens, a Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, set during his legendary coaching career. Siddens coached West Waterloo to 11 state team titles and a 327-26 dual meet record.

Christenson coached wrestling for 29 years, beginning in 1991 at Collins-Maxwell-Baxter High School. He was head coach at Oskaloosa High School from 1997 to 2001 and then coached Southeast Polk High School from 2001 to 2020.

He led Southeast Polk to a runner-up finish at the 3A Iowa High School State Wrestling Championships in 2012, the program’s first team trophy at the traditional state tournament. His team then won the 3A state tournament in 2013.

Jason had a career dual meet record of 480-106-6 and his teams won 12 district titles with six runner-up finishes. He led his teams to four state tournament titles while finishing second three times, third once and fourth twice. Jason’s team won the State Dual title five times while finishing second, third and fourth two times.

He coached 173 state qualifiers and 119 of them were place-winners, including 24 state champions and 21 state runners-up. He also had 17 third-place finishers, 15 fourth-place finishers, 12 fifth-place finishers, 13 sixth-place finishers, 10 seventh-place finishers and seven eighth-place finishers.

He served many years as Iowa’s junior director for USA Wrestling and was named USA Wrestling’s Developmental Coach of the Year in 2007.