David Lee was born and raised in Huntsville, Alabama, the middle son of Jim and Ola Ann Lee. My two brothers and I were always competitive with each other growing up, so our yard served as the first wrestling venue for us.

Wrestling has been a part of my life since the beginning. It began for me at Whitesburg Junior High where I had success before moving on to wrestle at Huntsville High School. In high school, my coach was Tim Lull who had a very regimented style of drilling the basics. He was a tough coach, but he motivated me. While wrestling for Huntsville High, I placed 3rd in the AHSAA State Tournament as a Sophomore, 2nd in the AHSAA State Tournament as a Junior, and 1st in the AHSAA State Tournament as a Senior. I continued my wrestling career after high school at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga (UTC) under Coach Jim Morgan. At UTC I wrestled varsity as a sophomore and placed 3rd in the Southern Conference Championship at 170 lbs.

After my sophomore year, I made the decision to give up wrestling to pursue my career goals. I transferred to Auburn University where I continued a pre-med course of study. I received a BS in Biology at Auburn and went on to the University of Alabama Birmingham School of Optometry (UABSO). I received my Doctorate of Optometry in 1988. I moved back to my hometown of Huntsville to start my practice and raise a family. I joined the Optometry practice of Drs. Ralph Winton and Bill Sullins. We subsequently joined forces with a group of private practices and became EyeCare Associates(ECA). Since starting primary care practice, I have had a special interest in Vision Rehabilitation, formerly known as Low Vision. We provide these patients with both optical and nonoptical devices that allow them to maintain and maximize their activities of daily living. Vision Rehabilitation can be a time-consuming specialty, but it is rewarding to be able to provide patients with devices that allow them to read when they have often been told there is nothing that can help.

I began coaching youth wrestling through the Southern Youth Wrestling Organization (SYWO) in 1996. Within a couple of years, I was coaching and running the local program (HYWA). I stopped coaching in 2004 and moved into organization and fundraising for the Huntsville High Wrestling team. In 2004 Huntsville High was torn down and rebuilt. Huntsville Wrestling, through county funding, donations, and fundraising built a separate wrestling facility. From 2005-2009, I served as the Huntsville High Wrestling Booster Club president.

In 2008 the City of Huntsville (Huntsville Sports Commission) began hosting the AHSAA State Wrestling Tournament at the Von Braun Center (Propst Arena). Ralph Stone, the director of the HSC asked me to coordinate the recruitment of volunteers for the tournament. For the past fifteen years, I have been in the role of coordinating all the volunteers for the AHSAA State Wrestling Tournaments. It has grown into an eight-mat tournament with three-sixteen-man brackets running three days and one-eight-man bracket running two days. I have been fortunate to have a great core of volunteers that have supported wrestling in Huntsville and continue to come back and help year after year.

I have always felt that the sport of wrestling helped shape who I am today. Coaching, foremost, and now working with the State Tournament has been my way of giving back to a sport that has been so rewarding to me and my family.

My father was always my biggest fan. He passed away in April 2018 from complications after battling a chronic illness for years. He and my mother attended all of my sporting events. My wife Cathy was my high school sweetheart. We were married in 1984 and have three children, Parker, Hunter, and Jordan. My boys, Parker and Hunter, both grew up wrestling and playing football and baseball. I was always involved in their extracurricular activities. Now they are both married with kids and self-employed. Parker is the owner of Old Town Plumbing and Hunter is a chiropractor at InVision. My daughter grew up involved in competition and high school cheerleading. She currently is the doctor liaison and event coordinator for SportsMed Orthopedic Center.