Alijah Jeffery was named the first women's wrestling coach in program history in March of 2023. He enters his second year guiding the program in 2024-25.
Jeffery joined the Tiger family after two years (2021-23) as head women's wrestling coach at Chadron State College in Chadron, Neb. Without a full year to recruit a team for a new sport at Chadron State, Jeffery quickly constructed a competitive team of eight wrestlers in the program's first year, coaching four that qualified for the NCWWC National Championship and five to Scholar All-America honors. In his second year of 2022-23, he brought in a big recruiting class of 21 individuals to the program and once again coached four national qualifiers. One of those national qualifiers in 2022-23 was a regional champion. Jeffery also served as the Nebraska Freestyle National Team Coach during his time at Chadron State.
Prior to his head coaching stint at Chadron State, Jeffery served as an assistant coach for both men's and women's wrestling at Indian Hills Community College in Centerville, Iowa. He helped coach the women's program to its first junior college national championship in 2021 before moving on to be head coach of the new women's program at Chadron State. He helped start the run of what has turned into three-straight junior college national titles for Indian Hills (2021-2023), and helped coach three wrestlers to individual national titles and 11 to All-America status during the 2020-21 season. Jeffery was hired in December of 2019 at Indian Hills and worked alongside head coach Cole Spree in the spring of 2020 to recruit the school's first women's wrestling team, which started competition in 2020-21 and went on to win the junior college national tournament and national dual titles that season.
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Jeffery wrestled collegiately at Northern Illinois University, where he was in the starting lineup all four years. He was a state champion and four-time state placer in high school, as well as a USA Folkstyle national champion and a Fargo Freestyle Nationals All-American. A native of Marion, Iowa, Jeffery earned his B.A. degree from Northern Illinois University and is currently working on his master's degree at Chadron State College.
