WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Mount Greylock wrestling coach Ray Miro's athletes rewarded his years of dedication on Saturday by giving him his 600th win.
But for Miro, the rewards of coaching go way beyond the win column.
"I come to these things, and as I'm in my later years, I do do a lot of reflecting," Miro, 62, said on Saturday afternoon. "I think about the kids.
"The 600 thing is really more about the kids and the coaches and the people who have been involved in it and the friends that I made. That's the best part about sports.
"If you're missing that, geez, you're really missing the whole boat. It's about friendships."
Miro has been making friends -- and winning matches -- at Mount Greylock since 1991. On Saturday, the Mounties went 4-0 in their season-opening Early Duals event, defeating Hampden Charter, Southwick-Tolland, Fair Haven, Vt., and Berlin, N.Y.
Win No. 600 came in Mount Greylock's second contest of the season, a 48-38 decision over Southwick.
Derek Pelletier (113 pounds), Travis Hilchey (138), Cayman Mead (145) and Corbin Richardson (160) each delivered a pin in the milestone dual meet win.
Dakota Lane at 182 had a pin in the Mounties' toughest contest of the day, a season-opening 37-33 victory over Hampden Charter.
Mount Greylock went on to relatively easy wins over Fair Haven and Berlin by scores of 66-18 and 54-12, respectively.
Miro said the season-opening event was a solid start for his team.
"I realized going in that we needed a lot of work, and we still need a lot of work," he said. "We don't have everybody down to their weight classes yet. We have a couple of kids over. And once we get a kid back from injury.
"We have a lot of work to do because we have a lot of new kids, and we're moderately young. We don't have a lot of seniors. The kids are working hard.
"I love coming to practice."
And he loves going to meets, win or lose, even though, as the record shows, there have been more wins than losses for the Mounties in nearly a quarter century under Miro.
Some of those wins were with his son, Shane, a Mount Greylock graduate who now lives in Rhode Island but made the trip up to see his dad win No. 600 on Saturday.
And not all of his wins have been at Mount Greylock. Ray Miro started his high school coaching career in Brandon, Vt., where he built Otter Valley Union High School's program into a perennial power over the course of 10 years.
Miro does not know for sure how many years of coaching he has left in him. "My wrestlers would say I started retiring in 1995," he jokes. But it is a fair bet that he will go on collecting wins -- and friends -- for a while to come.
"I can go to almost any gym and know somebody there," Miro said. "And they know of me. We start to talk. You know, you're stuck in that gy for a while, so you either make friends or you're miserable.
"I just enjoy that part a lot."
