2022: Alijah Jeffery was brought onto the Chadron State College women's wrestling coaching staff in August of 2021, as the inaugural head coach of the brand new NCAA women's wrestling program, and the team began competition that same fall.
Jeffery quickly brought in eight student-athletes to pioneer women's wrestling at CSC, and the Eagles began seeing success almost immediately picking up the program's first dual win in January. Four of the eight on the initial roster qualified for the national tournament.
Since then, Jeffery has continued his hot streak of recruiting, boosting the roster from 7 to 28. Included in the signees are JuCo national champions Heaven-Leigh Jackson and Sofia Rubio, as well as Isabel Ortiz of Kansas, who was ranked 10th in the nation among high school girls' wrestlers.
Jeffery arrived at CSC after two successful years as an assistant for both the women's and men's wrestling programs at Indian Hills Community College in Centerville, Iowa, where he coached three individual national champions and 12 All-Americans in the 2020-21 women's wrestling season. Jeffery helped the Warriors earn national titles in both the first-ever junior college national championship tournament and the junior college national duals tournament for women's wrestling, racking up an 8-2 duals record.
Prior to his coaching career, Jeffery wrestled collegiately at NCAA Division I Northern Illinois University where he was in the Huskies' starting lineup all four years. As a prep, he wrestled at Linn-Mar High School in Marion, Iowa, and won a state championship at 120 pounds in 2014 while finishing third, third, and fifth in his other three seasons. The CSC head coach was also a USA Folkstyle national champion and a Fargo Freestyle Nationals All-American.
