Doug Moses is a proven winner both as competitor and a coach, and brings a winning tradition and nationally recognized expertise to New Mexico Highlands University’s new wrestling program. Moses teaches what he believes, “Wrestlers represent the values of America—wrestling is a grind, it’s physical, with lots of blood sweat and tears, you’re on your own, it’s one-on-one, you make a lot of sacrifices, there’s no one to fall back on when you are out there.”

Moses began his wrestling career at Adams State College where he was a National Champion and received a BA in Physical Education. He continued his studies, earning his Masters in Educational Administration from Colorado State University. While there, Moses became assistant coach to the men’s wrestling team, launching his coaching career.

After graduation, he coached first at Air Academy High School in Colorado Springs. Then in 1982, Moses became the first head wrestling coach at the University of Southern Colorado (now Colorado State University-Pueblo), building the school’s wrestling program into one of the most highly regarded in the country. During his twenty year tenure, Moses’ teams won 6 Rocky Mountain Conference Championships. He also produced an astonishing 68 All-Americans and 11 National Champions.

Like scores of other colleges, CSU- Pueblo dropped wrestling as a collegiate sport for budgetary reasons. Moses chose to remain in Colorado Springs. For the next two years, he coached Harrison High School’s wrestling team. Fortunately for Highland’s, Moses agreed to lead NMHU wrestling after New Mexico Senator James Taylor of NM Senate procured funding for collegiate wrestling and Manny Aragon, former NMHU president, agreed to initiate the program. “I wanted to get back into college-level wrestling. NMHU was an opportunity to start a new program from scratch and now I’m trying to build a National program,” says Moses.

NMHU now has the only collegiate wrestling program in the state. The 2005-2006 season was the team’s first, but that didn’t stop them from enjoying an impressive opening year. Thanks to Doug Moses, NMHU had two national qualifiers and an All-American, a harbinger of things to come.