Any head wrestling coach will tell you that assistant coaches are the difference makers in the success of any program.

One such man is Tom Dillinger, who was an assistant coach for 44 years at four Prince William County high schools.

After wrestling at Manassas Park High School, Dillinger began a longtime partnership with Bill Cameron, who received the Lifetime Service to Wrestling award from the Virginia Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2006, in coaching the Cougars to back-to-back Single A state championships.

Probably the high point of his career was his tenure with Cameron at Stonewall Jackson High School, now Unity Reed High School. In two decades at Stonewall, which competed in Class AAA, the largest division, Dillinger was instrumental in helping the team finish second at five state tournaments while having 11 individual state champions. Stonewall also had a 357-52 dual record and won 14 district titles and seven regional crowns.

Loyalty to the Cameron family led next to a 10-year affiliation with Bill's son, Seth, at Forest Park High School. The new pairing produced four district titles, five regional runner-up trophies, and five Top 10 state finishes, including third place in 2013. When Seth went into administration at neighboring Brentsville, Tom followed him and became an assistant to head coach Rick Adams. One of Tom’s best recent memories was in 2024 when his team came from 40 points down in the regional tournament and qualified 13 wrestlers for division 3A states.

Coach Dillinger would no doubt have been a superior head coach were it not for his busy life. With wife Karen, he has raised four daughters (Natalie, Rebecca, Sally, and Susan) and has replaced his airport job with his own construction company. Naturally, he named it Grappler Construction Company.

Dillinger has always been ahead of his time in wrestling technique. In the 1980s, long before high schools adopted it wholesale, he introduced low singles and frustrated workout partners with his scrambling style on the mat. You could start with a pin hold on him, and he would wriggle out, generally in 10 seconds or less. He has been known to visit practices at high schools in neighboring counties if Prince William schools are shut down for weather. At Social Security age, he still loves to go to any padded room, and lives by the motto of "Have singlet, will travel."