Northampton Community College (NCC) Director of Athletics, Troy Tucker, has announced that Shaun Lally has been named the inaugural head men's and women's wrestling coach for the college.
"Coach Lally's experience at the college level and in the Lehigh Valley, really resonated with the committee," remarked Tucker, "he has shown the ability to recruit on the college level, and his teams had success, not only on the mat, but in the classroom as well."
A former head coach at the Junior High, High School, Club, NCWA (National Collegiate Wrestling Association), and NCAA levels, Lally's programs have won various awards for marketing, branding, fundraising and academics. Lally is one of only a handful of college coaches to attend all three of the National Wrestling Coaching Association's (NWCA) Leadership Academies; Men's Collegiate, Women's Collegiate, and Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA). A USA Wrestling bronze-certified coach, Lally attended the first-ever Women's Leadership Academy at Lock Haven University in 2013. He went on to coach two women's wrestlers who were National Qualifiers in the National Collegiate Wrestling Association (NCWA) in 2013-2014. From 2012-2017, Lally coached 12 collegiate national qualifiers and 7 Academic All-Americans.
In 2014, Coach Lally led a resurgence at nearby Muhlenberg College. The Mules, a NCAA Division III team, finished 4-9 overall in his first season, doubling the program win total from the five previous years combined (2-60). In addition, they broke a 37-match losing streak in the Centennial Conference that spanned five years. Ten dual meet wins in 2016-2017 matched eight years combined and saw an individual wrestler tie the school season pin record. Six straight semesters of an increased team GPA led to having the 23rd-highest GPA in the country in 2016-2017. Lally recruited over 30 student-athletes in under three years, all of which went on to graduate.
Prior to Muhlenberg, Lally guided Stony Brook's first-ever collegiate wrestling program, which competed in the NCWA. He was also the head coach at Nazareth Regional High School in Brooklyn and the Junior High head coach at Port Jefferson Middle School. He volunteered with Beat the Streets youth wrestling program in Manhattan from 2009 to 2010 and is a member of the Wrestlers in Business Network (WIBN).
A native New Yorker, Lally grew up in the Lehigh Valley wrestling in District XI. A graduate of Parkland High School, he was a PIAA District XI and Northeast Regional runner-up, losing in the state tournament to future NCAA champion and Olympic bronze medalist, Coleman Scott. In high school, he was also a two-time national qualifier in Freestyle and Greco-Roman for team Pennsylvania. In college, Lally went on to attend and wrestle at the NCAA Division I level for the University of Pittsburgh for three years. No stranger to NCC, Lally wrestled for the Spartans when they were a club team in the NCWA and was ranked as high as #2 in the country at 141 pounds.
Lally received his bachelor's degree in business and economics from the State University of New York in 2014. Lally and his four children reside in the Parkland School District.
