Twenty-two years in two states makes it a career for Powell High School wrestling coach Nate Urbach.

The 2020 state tournament was the last for Urbach, who coached teams to nine state championships: three at Rushville, Nebraska, and six more since coming to Powell, where the Greybull native stepped in for the late Jim Stringer.

Stringer was head coach of both football and wrestling at the time, but doing both jobs, said Urbach, “was too big a load for Jim.”

Enter Urbach, who was looking to move nearer to his family in Greybull. In fact, he talked to then-PHS Activities Director Ron Laird the year before the job became available.

Urbach wrestled in college at Chadron State, during which time he and a friend organized and coached USA youth wrestling during spring in nearby Rushville. He student-taught there and helped with the wrestling program. Upon graduation, Urbach was hired as a teacher and head coach of the high school team.

After six years in Rushville, Urbach has spent the last 16 in Powell, where he will continue to teach sociology, world history and dual-credit U.S. history.

“I love teaching,” he said. Unlike others who are coaches first and teachers second, “[I] always enjoyed both aspects of it,” Urbach said. “I miss the classroom when we travel.” He especially appreciates PHS classes that also earn college credit for how they build bridges between high school and post-secondary education.

Urbach would consider “helping out [coaching] younger kids maybe — I’d be interested in that,” but that decision isn’t his to make.

His father was “the wrestling coach for a long time at Greybull” and “had a ton of success.” In 26 years, he coached the Buffs to nine state team titles, leaving father and son in a tie.

“I tried to get him,” said Urbach with a chuckle, “but that 10th one was tough.”

On the night of Urbach’s final home dual, the coach was honored with an enthusiastic response from the PHS crowd.

“I was overwhelmed by the standing ovation” which “made the night very special for me and my family,” Urbach said at the time. He had told Lisa Horton — mother of junior standout wrestler Seth Horton — “that I didn’t want anything done for me … just focus on the kids. But as she stated, ‘When have I listened to you?’”

“Thanks to all the parents and senior boys that made the night so special,” Urbach said. “I truly feel extremely lucky to have coached here in Powell for the past 16 years.”

Olie Olsen, a three-time Panther state champ, “flew all the way from Phoenix in order to give me my retirement gift,” Urbach said. “I have always had a close relationship with Olie and this made the night unforgettable.”

Speaking more recently after the state tournament — where the Panthers took fourth and crowned two individual champions — he said the support from the community and the school district has been over the top from day one.

“I couldn’t have picked a better spot” than Powell. “I got really lucky. I have been extremely blessed.”

What comes to the front of his 22-year wrestling memory bank?

“The best part about the whole deal is the kids” who provide “a ton of rewards and those rewards don’t go away,” Urbach said. “I’ll be talking to former wrestlers, I’m sure, forever.”

Why wrestling for him?

“It demands you have personal accountability,” especially in light of the solitary, man-to-man aspect of competition, Urbach said. “If you haven’t dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s, it’s going to show.”

At the high school level, wrestling delivers “a lot of good lessons both ways [win or lose],” the coach said. “You work with a team and within yourself. Teammates are the ones who make you better. We have a saying in wrestling: steel sharpens steel.”

Urbach is most thankful for his family, especially his wife who is “a single mom from December through February. Any coach will tell you that you gotta have a strong mate.”

He also cites a “lot of great coaches helping me out” over the years, too.

“This is not a one-man show by any means,” Urbach said. “They’ve really made my job easy and that’s great to have.”

He called himself fortunate to be a part of Park County School District No. 1, the Powell community and to have a “ton of supportive parents,” who have stood behind their kids and his program each and every season of his career.