Named the SoCon Coach of the Year seven times in his 16 seasons as head coach and a four-time national coach of the year finalist, JohnMark Bentley helped lead a rebuilt and adversity-challenged 2024-25 team to a share of the league’s regular season title before the Mountaineers captured a third straight SoCon tournament title.

The 2024-25 season followed top-25, title winning seasons in 2023-24 (No. 24 final ranking, SoCon tournament title) and 2022-23 (No. 20 final ranking, sweep of SoCon titles).

Hired as the head coach in 2009, Bentley’s career dual record stands at 152-83-1 with eight SoCon regular season titles (five outright, unbeaten championships) and five SoCon tournament titles.

In June 2024, Bentley signed a contract extension through the 2028-29 season. He was named a national coach of the finalist in 2024, 2022, 2018 and 2012.

While attracting some of the nation’s top teams to Boone, the Mountaineers have consistently wrestled in front of standing-room-only crowds at Varsity Gym, with several crowds in the renovated and upgraded facility right at the current capacity of 1,000 over the last few seasons.

Since Bentley became coach, App State has had 64 NCAA qualifiers and five All-America finishes. Those were Jon Jon Millner (back-to-back in 2021-22), Denzel Dejournette (heavyweight) in 2017, Kyle Blevins (165 pounds) in 2012 and Austin Trotman (184 pounds) in 2012. The Mountaineers produced three NCAA Championship qualifiers in 2025, bringing the total to 32 over the last six seasons. Ten of the nation’s 11 NCAA qualifiers from N.C. high schools over three seasons from 2020-22 came from App State, with three more in 2023, two more in 2024 and one more in 2025.

Under Bentley’s direction, in the previous 11 seasons, App State’s 73-7 conference record ranks No. 4 among the best league records in Division I wrestling, behind just Cornell, Penn State and Oklahoma State. In the previous 10 seasons, Bentley’s program is 91-10 against non-Power Conference opponents with 13 victories against teams from Power Five leagues, highlighted by wins against Indiana (2015-16), No. 15 Oregon State (2016-17), No. 25 North Carolina (2016-17), No. 21 North Carolina (2022-23) and No. 21 North Carolina (2023-24).

The program has a national-best 19 dual shutouts since the calendar flipped to 2020, including two during the 2024-25 season. 

Growing up less than 20 miles from App State, Bentley was a star wrestler at nearby Avery County High School before he became a three-time ACC champion at North Carolina. He began his coaching career as a Davidson assistant in 2003, was the head coach at Watauga High School from 2003-06, worked as an App State assistant from 2006-08 and was promoted to associate head coach during the 2008-09 season. He made his debut as App State’s head coach the following season.

In addition to national Top 25 rankings in 2022-23 and 2023-24, App State achieved national top-25 rankings during the 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2018-19 seasons, climbing to as high as No. 16 during a 12-3 season in 2016-17.

The 2024-25 team went 8-4 overall and 7-1 in the league while starting freshmen at five of 10 weights after losing two top-16 NCAA finishers to P4 programs via the transfer portal, being displaced from its damaged locker room in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene and having two other SoCon champions with NCAA experience suffer season-ending injuries in the first dual of the season.

The No. 24 national ranking with a 10-4 overall record and four individual SoCon champions from a tournament-winning team helped Bentley be named SoCon Coach of the Year and a NWCA national coach of the year finalist.

That followed a 2022-23 season in which App State swept a pair of SoCon titles and finished with a No. 20 national team ranking. In winning the tournament title in 2024, the Mountaineers had five individual champions, six finalists, eight top-three finishes and 10 top-four finishes while amassing 114.0 team points. The Mountaineers posted five dual team shutouts and went 110-30 in individual dual matches in 2022-23, with a combined seven individual wins in competitive losses to No. 3 NC State and No. 10 Virginia Tech.

App State went 7-0 in Southern Conference duals in 2021-22 despite having its full lineup available for just one conference dual, went 8-0 in SoCon duals in 2022-23 despite having injuries cut short the seasons of three November starters and finished 7-1 in 2023-24.

As a college wrestler, Bentley was twice named team MVP at North Carolina. He was the 2001 ACC Wrestler of the Year and a 2000 University Nationals Freestyle All-American. He ranks ninth in UNC single-season win percentage with a mark of .919 after he went 31-2 in 2000-01. He finished with 92 career wins, was a three-year member of the UNC Student-Athletic Council and earned a degree in communications in 2001. In 2008, he earned a masters degree in school administration from App State.

A three-sport athlete at Avery High School, Bentley was the second wrestler in North Carolina high school history to win four state championships. He finished his high school career with a perfect 144-0 record, capped by a National Championship in 1997.

Bentley’s brother, Matthew, wrestled at App State from 1992-96.

Bentley and his wife, Aaron, have three children: two daughters, Katie and Luci, and one son, Luke.

.