A veteran coach and educator who is also the father of a Penn State wrestling legend is expected to be named the next leader of the State College Area High School boys wrestling program.
Jason Nickal’s appointment as wrestling coach is listed among the human resources recommendations on the consent agenda for Monday night’s school board meeting.
Nickal is the father of Nittany Lion three-time national champion and current MMA fighter Bo Nickal. Jason Nickal will succeed another former Nittany Lion wrestler, Ryan Cummins, who led the State High boys program for 10 years before stepping down at the end of last season.
Over the course of his career, Nickal has led teams to 10 state championships and 55 individual titles, according to a press release in 2019 when he was named assistant principal and athletics director at Paducah Tilghman High School in Kentucky. He has won 11 coach of the year awards, including the National Wrestling Coaches Association State Coach of the Year twice.
After graduating in 1992 from Chadron State College, where he lettered in football, Nickal started his coaching career in Colorado. He returned to his alma mater Torrington High School in Wyoming in 1999 as head wrestling coach and assistant football coach, according to the Torrington Telegram. (His father, Gary, also coached at Torrington.)
Nickal then led Rio Rancho High School in New Mexico, where he also taught biology, to four state wrestling titles in four years. In 2010, he took a position as aquatic science instructor and assistant wrestling coach at Allen High School in suburban Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas.
It was at Allen that Bo Nickal became one of the nation’s top high school wrestlers, claiming three state titles and a runner-up finish and helping to lead four state championship teams. He went on to become one of Penn State’s all-time great wrestlers and continues to live in Centre County, operating and training at American Top Team Happy Valley MMA gym in Pleasant Gap.
Jason Nickal’s next stop was McCracken County High School in Kentucky, where starting in 2016 he was a teacher and head wrestling coach. In 2019, he was appointed to the assistant principal and AD position at Paducah Tilghman.
Nickal has been wrestling category manager for equipment and apparel supplier BSN Sports since 2021, according to his LinkedIn profile.
As State High wrestling coach, he will earn a salary of $8,381 a year, according to the agenda for Monday’s school board meeting.
The Little Lions are coming off a third-place team finish at the PIAA 3A Championships in March. Rising senior Asher Cunningham, the son of Penn State assistant coach Casey Cunningham and a Nittany Lion commitment, returns for State High in 2024-25 after winning the state title at 160 pounds.
