White River High has a new wrestling coach on the boys side of the program, as Tim Kitchen has been elevated from an assistant’s role to the head job.

The Tacoma native and graduate of Central Washington University replaces Joe Klein.

Kitchen brings experience as both a head coach and an assistant to the Hornet program, along with a successful prep and collegiate career on the mat.

At Wilson High School, he placed four times at the state wrestling tournament, capping his time with the Rams with a state championship. He then competed at Central, where he earned All-American honors. Along the way, he was an All-American numerous times in both freestyle and Greco Roman competition.

After graduating in 1999 from CWU, he coached at Port Angeles High School where he spent one season as an assistant and two as head coach. After some time away, he served as an assistant coach at Tahoma High School from 2008 to 2016 before spending last season as an assistant under Klein at White River.

The 42-year-old Kitchen – a husband, a father of two and a teacher at Glacier Middle School – espouses a philosophy that embraces success in wrestling, in the classroom and in life.

“I believe in building good people,” he wrote in an email. “My No. 1 goal is to help build young men by reinforcing leadership skills in the classroom. Individuals who graduate from our program will have a plan for their next step in life and will have acquired the characteristics and skills to be leaders in their families, work and communities. They will identify with being humble and will appreciate the process rather than the results. As a byproduct of building well rounded young men, we will be successful on and off the mat.”