When future generations of North Idaho College wrestlers and coaches walk into the wrestling room at North Idaho College, they will notice a familiar name who was one of the best junior college wrestling coaches in the United States and who will be honored a mere 15 days from now at Christianson Gym.

JOHN OWEN, who coached the Cardinals to eight NJCAA championships during his tenure from 1978 to 1996, will have the wrestling training room named after him - the John Owen wrestling room - a few minutes before the finals of the 35th annual Tri-State wrestling tournament, which will feature high school teams from Idaho, Washington, Montana and Oregon.

Owen, 66, is head coach of Central Valley High in Spokane, which will compete at Tri-State, and will be honored before the finals on Saturday, Dec. 21 by NIC inside Christianson Gymnasium. Bill Putnam, the pastor at Real Life Ministries in Coeur d'Alene, will introduce him to the crowd.

Owen will have a 2x3-foot plaque presented to him, to be installed above the doorway to the wrestling room. There will also be a smaller plaque installed in the foyer near the other entrance to the room.

"You know, I say this jokingly, I thought you should be dead to have something named after you. When I was working at NIC, I was just a guy working my best. Winning eight national titles is more than I ever I ever expected. It's something that evolved."

Owen said sometime in the late 1980s, after winning four national titles coaching the Cardinals, he was among the top three finalists for the head coaching job at Oregon State. He also interested in the head coaching job at Michigan State during his time at NIC, but they did not call him until two weeks before the fall semester began and he did not apply.

Owen, who graduated from Central Washington University, came to NIC as a 28-year-old assistant coach in 1975, was 31 when he took over as head coach in 1978 (the year I was born, by the way). When he resigned, Owen was 49 and spent his entire career working.

"When I came there, it was all about me, me me," Owen said. "I was selfish. He (Rolly Williams, former NIC athletic director and men's basketball coach) put up with a lot. After a while, I matured, I was better to work for. Rolly is the best boss I ever had, because he's a straight shooter."

OWEN, NOT one to seek the limelight, will have the spotlight shined on him for a few minutes where his Cardinals were - and still are - dominant. NIC has won four national titles since he left, the most recent one last season.

"I can't tell you what a big part of my life NIC was," Owen said. "That's an important place not just to my family, and to have them to give me something that will be permanent, to my kids, it's more important for them than it is for myself. I never liked the attention. I consider myself a private guy ... I would much rather be the guy who is underneath the mat moving it than be in the arena holding a trophy ... here it is, I'm getting a room named after me. That's a workout room and that kind of fits me pretty good. I believe in the room, in hard work."

Owen said he'd be fine if he coached in today's technologically advanced world of social media, emails and other recent technology.

"I think I would've been able to take advantage of that," Owen said. "With the cell phones and things like that, I'd be able to recruit pretty well."

THE MAN who came up with the idea to name the 30-by-16-foot, maroon and silver wrestling room was NIC head athletic trainer Randy Boswell. Boswell was hired by NIC in 1994, the year after Owen's last national title. Owen presented the idea of naming the room after Owen on November 2012 to NIC athletic director Al Williams, who later presented the idea to the college's Board of Trustees, who approved it two weeks ago.

"I think it's deserving," Boswell said. "John won more titles than anybody. He has the best record in junior college and maybe even (one of the best) among four-year colleges. I'm an instructor at NIC and sometimes I'll get a wrestler in my class. I'll talk about John Owen and unfortunately they'll say, 'Who's John Owen?' They don't know who he is. And this is one way to at least bring it to their attention. Most of the people there who are coaches know who John Owen is. Some of these young bucks don't know who he is. There needs to be a way to recognize him and honor him and his family as well. John sacrificed a lot but I think his family sacrificed even more. There were times when he was gone and recruiting, so this is as much for the family. "

Boswell said Owen is a humble fellow and it took a little convincing to get him to agree to making his legacy at NIC permanent.

"John is not into a long, drawn-out ceremony," Boswell said. "He said, 'I really don't need this.' I said, 'You need to stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about your family.' He said, 'OK, you're a good salesperson.' I talked to his kids and they're excited to come back, and they spent a lot of hours in that gymnasium. They still come back for wrestling events, even though their dad's not coaching. I think that convinced him to go ahead and do it ... John did a lot for me. The one thing is, he never took an athletic trainer to nationals before he took me. At the time, in 1994, I was the only athletic trainer there and I've been to every one since. More and more schools brought their athletic trainers because they saw the success NIC had. My disappointment was not to be with John when he won a national title."

"It's recognition that is long overdue," NIC athletic director Al Williams. "He's a legend. People couldn't even pronounce Coeur d'Alene before and his teams gave us national recognition."

OWEN WILL be there with his wife, Janet, and the tournament has been somewhat of a family affair for the Owens. John and Janet Owen currently live in Spokane Valley, and the couple has four older children and five grandchildren.

John's son, Tommy Owen, is the lead assistant coach at George Mason in Fairfax, Va. His other son, Brian, is a redshirt senior wrestler at Boise State. John's daughter Jennifer Kelly is an assistant coach for the Lake City High volleyball team and a former head coach of the team. Another daughter, Nicole, is a head coach of a junior high volleyball team.

"I stopped coaching when I did for family reasons," Owen said. "One of my sons, Tommy, was wrestling in high school (at University High in Spokane). I realized there was an enormous conflict ... I wanted to be there watching, so my decision was to choose something. I've never wanted to coach college for one day since I left. What I do miss is working with top-level kids. It consumed me, out of 365 days in the year, I worked 320, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m."

John is the oldest of six brothers. Tim Owen will be there as the head coach of Ferris High from Spokane. So will Don Owen, head coach at University High of Spokane. Bob Owen is the head coach and Bill the assistant coach of Polson High in Polson, Mont., and 65-year-old Mike Owen will be one of the officials in the tournament. Corey Owen, Lake City High's head coach, is John's 32-year-old nephew, and wrestled for current NIC head coach Pat Whitcomb.

"I know what he's done for that program," Corey Owen said. "He has earned that honor. He coached me since I was a kid. I learned a lot about coaching from him. He brings a lot of class to it. His mentality to the sport transfers to the kids. You can tell his kids are listening when he talks."

Since leaving NIC, he was an assistant for four years under Don Owen at U-High, then was head coach at Central Valley for six years, then got out of coaching for a couple years, then was head coach at West Valley for three years before returning to CV in 2010.

OWEN'S COACHING performance is the stuff of legends. On top of his eight national titles - won in 1978, 1982, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1990 and 1993 - Owen's teams finished among the top three in the nation 17 times during his 20-year career. His 309-22-2 career record is as close to undefeated as you can get for someone who coached as long as he did, and he had 11 seasons with an undefeated dual meet record. In 2009, Owen was part of the inaugural class of the North Idaho College Athletics Hall of Fame, and in 1989 he was inducted into the NJCAA Hall of Fame.

For a local legend, honoring Owen by naming the wrestling room where his wrestlers toiled is a fitting tribute.

Bruce Bourquin is a sports writer at The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2013, or via email at bbourquin@cdapress.com Follow him on Twitter @bourq25