Retired Hoover coach inducted into National Wrestling Hall of Fame

Carmine “Duke” Chimento took on a job as a history teacher but soon figured out there was another way he could serve students.

He became a wrestling coach. 

More than 30 years after forming one of his first teams from his physical education class at Phillips High School in Birmingham and 20 years after retiring from Hoover High School, Chimento this spring was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, where he received the Life Service to Wrestling award. 

Chimento was in seventh or eighth grade when he fell in love with wrestling for the first time. His older brother, Frank, was a wrestler, and he wanted to try it for himself. 

“I went to junior high, I joined the team, and it’s been a love affair ever since,” Chimento said. 

He wrestled all four years in high school and in college at Auburn University. Once he graduated, he became a wrestling coach. He started a brand new wrestling program at Chavala High School in Russell County and stayed there for one year. He then moved to Phillips High School, where he coached for 11 years before moving to Berry High School in Hoover. He coached at Berry — and Hoover High after the name change — for 22 years before retiring. In 2019, he was inducted into the Alabama Wrestling Hall of Fame. 

Chimento said wrestling is a high-discipline sport where kids have to make a lot of sacrifices. He enjoyed making men out of the students with whom he worked as a coach, seeing them grow, develop and eventually apply the skills they learned in wrestling to their future. 

“His coaching style was an attack style of wrestling, and getting in the other person’s face,” said Stewart Holt, who wrestled at Hoover when Chimento coached there. “A domineering style of wrestling ... never quit, never give up. Outwork your opponent who is across from you.

“That’s kind of been my style in life,” Holt said. “I don’t really take no for an answer. I don’t quit until there’s absolutely no hope of something having success.” 

Holt won state championships in wrestling in 1993 and 1994, his junior and senior years of high school. One of his favorite memories of wrestling with Chimento is from the weeks leading up to his second state championship. 

During the summer before his senior year, Holt wrestled so much that by the time the season came around he was burnt out and needed a break. Chimento allowed him time to recharge and get his head straight while everyone else kept wrestling. When he came back a few weeks later, he won his second state title. He embraced Chimento in a winning hug and exchanged thank yous with him.

“That’s a moment I’ll never forget,” Holt said. 

He is currently a wrestling coach at the Skull and Crossbones Wrestling club in Hoover, where he teaches the children the same philosophies Chimento taught him: face fears, be aggressive, try to win and wrestle fair. 

Chimento retired from coaching in 2001 and currently lives in Hoover with his wife, Judy. They have two sons, Randall and Michael, and four grandchildren. 

He said some of his favorite memories of wrestling are from Phillips High School. To raise money for wrestling there, he would fit as many students in his Dodge Charger as possible and take them to downtown Birmingham to sell Krispy Kreme donuts at the nearby gas stations. He wasn’t paid to coach wrestling, but he did it anyway. “It’s what you do for wrestling, you dedicate your life to it.”