Photo By Cpl. Joseph Demarcus | Senior Master Sgt. Daric Buttrick, U.S. Air Force wrestling coach, leads practice for...... read more read more
NEWINGTON, NH – The final whistle at 2026 Armed Forces Wrestling Championship marked more than the end of the tournament for Senior Master Sgt. Daric Buttrick, a member of the New Hampshire National Guard. As the Air Force team’s head wrestling coach, he just witnessed success on the faces of the athletes he led as they put their best foot forward and competed against world medalists and Olympians.
Buttrick, a program manager for New Hampshire Air National Guard Joint Forces Head Quarters, has dedicated his life to the military and wrestling. His love for the sport and his growth within the Armed Forces have evolved almost in unison. Through many years of service, he has formed his philosophy as a tough but well-rounded coach and non-commissioned officer, connecting the skills and tools that make great Airmen and athletes.
Buttrick has been wrestling for over 30 years. Coaching has been a part of his athletic career since nearly the beginning.
“When I first started, my sixth-grade Science teacher, was pushing people hard to join the team,” said Buttrick. “I started, fell in love with it. When I was in eighth grade, I started coaching the elementary school team.”
In 1997, he joined the Army, spending seven years overseas. But after deploying to Iraq, the intensity he once brought to competition began to fade. The stakes of a wrestling match no longer felt vital.
“I had a hard time looking at matches as life and death,” said Buttrick. “Winning and losing as life and death, and you kind of need to be high-end competitive.”
Returning from combat and gaining perspective allowed him to experience the intrinsic tie between his time as a wrestler and as a service member. In 2004, when his Army contract ended, he joined the Security Forces Squadron for the 157th Air Refueling Wing at Pease Air National Guard Base, New Hampshire.
Since then, he has found plenty of intersections between coaching wrestlers and being an NCO.
“Leadership is something that you learn, and you have to practice,” said Buttrick. “Coaching has given me more of an opportunity to practice, at all levels of leadership.”
As he transitioned to a more administrative role in his military career, he also climbed the coaching ladder. In 2012 he began his tenure as Head Coach of Club Wrestling University of New Hampshire, winning the 2015 National Collegiate Wrestling Association Northeast Conference Coach of the Year award.
The culmination of his dedication and discipline arrived in 2025, when he was named Head Wrestling Coach at the Department of the Air Force Sports. The connection between the two paths he invested his time and energy into had returned the biggest opportunity.
“It's all the cool things about being a senior NCO, mentorship, training, personnel, even some of the rough parts, like tough conversations,” said Buttrick. “The mission is the sport.”
His experience has shown him how wrestling complements Airman Readiness, promoting self-confidence, reliability, and most importantly, how to train as a team but execute individually, an approach that rendered the team exciting results in the championship match.
“I was very proud,” remembered Buttrick, smiling. “Our team went out against world-class athletes and they wrestled tough.”
As he looks forward to the future of Air Force wrestling and his last year in the force, Buttrick's focus is no longer only on building winning athletes, but on building a stronger, fuller version of the sport itself.
He explained, one of the most important accomplishments of his first year as Head Wrestling Coach at the DAFS was the construction of the first full women’s wrestling team.
Alongside Senior Master Sgt. Don DeGarmo, an instructor at the senior NCO Academy in Alabama and Assistant Coach at the DAFS, Buttrick recruited 10 women wrestlers from across the force, a milestone that delivered the only gold medal for the Air Force team at the 2026 AFWC.
“I want to see the culmination of what Don and I were trying to start on the women's side,” he said. “I just want to get out to a point where we can actually have a full competition, where everybody's expected to bring teams so we can have both sides of the house.”
After nearly three decades on the mat and in uniform, Buttrick’s mission has become bigger than any single match or any single exercise.
By implementing his deep knowledge, pushing athletes to compete at the highest level and opening doors for women in the sport, he is helping shape a future where military wrestling is deeper, tougher and more complete.
For Buttrick, the mission is the sport.
| Date Taken: | 05.01.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 05.13.2026 14:00 |
| Story ID: | 564894 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 22 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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