By Kevin Eckleberry

Sports Editor

Dariel Daniel couldn’t stay away.

After more than three decades as a teacher and a coach, the man who built a wrestling dynasty at Troup High school was retired, but he was restless.

“Somebody told me, just retire and enjoy life,” said Daniel, who conducted a wrestling camp at Callaway High that wrapped up on Wednesday.

Problem was, what Daniel enjoyed was coaching, not relaxing at home or playing golf all day.

So Daniel, who won his ninth state championship in his final season at Troup in 2001, picked up his whistle, packed his bags and headed to Texas, where he coached for the past several years.

Daniel’s current gig is as an assistant coach at Allen High, where he helped the school win a state title last season.

Daniel will return to the school for the 2009-2010 school year.

“I retired, and I stay retired for two years,” Daniel said. “And then I thought, I can’t stay away from the kids, so I went and found a job (in Texas) so I could work with kids.”

His first stop was at a school in Grand Prarie, and after that it was off to Allen High in Amarillo.

Last season, Allen won the state duals, giving Daniel a 10th state championship.

Nine of those state titles came at Troup, with the first coming in 1978 and the final one in 2001.

Daniel’s teams also had numerous runnerup finishes at state, and he figures some of the best teams he had at Troup didn’t win it all.

“They moved us up to Class AAAA, and three of the best teams I ever had didn’t win state,” Daniel said. “We were runnerup to McEachern for three straight years.”

Daniel, who headed the Troup wrestling program for 29 years, left the school with a 411-12 record in dual meets, including a winning streak that stretched to nearly 300 matches.

He was named the national coach of the year twice, and he’s a member of the Georgia Wrestling Hall of Fame.

Daniel obviously has nothing left to prove, but he believes the wrestling mat is where he belongs.

“If I die coaching wrestling, that’s perfectly fine with me,” Daniel said. “It’s what I like. It’s real fun, and it’s been real good to me.”

One of the men who helped with Daniel’s camp this week is John Martin, now a coach at Smiths Station (Ala.) and formerly a wrestling coach at Long Cane Middle School while Daniel was at Troup.

Martin said it’s Daniel’s attention to detail, and his passion for teaching, that makes him so successful.

“I still don’t like to teach anything he didn’t teach me,” Martin said. “I hadn’t seen him in 10 years (before this week), and there were so many things that stuck with me. I learned so much from him, and he gives (the wrestlers) so much personal attention.”

Daniel has conducted wrestling camps for years, but this is the first one he’s held in Troup County since he left Troup High.

He hopes to make it an annual event at Callaway High, and he said he enjoyed working with the Cavaliers’ coaches, including head coach J.J. Wahl.

This year’s camp had around 20 wrestlers, mostly from Callaway High and Troup High.

“The kids have worked really hard, and I think they’ll get better,” Daniel said. “They can be so good. They just need to work in their technique.”