Scott Stoner told the tow truck driver not to worry about immediately taking his car to be repaired when his engine blew out on the highway.

The Butler wrestling coach had a summer tournament in the Pittsburgh area to get Jason and Tim Parker to in the late 1990s.

The driver obliged and took the Parkers to the venue.

Jason and Tim signed in and got to wrestling.

“(Stoner) came back a few hours later,” Jason Parker said. “He went out and bought a brand-new car.”

Few things get between the fiery former Division I wrestler and his dedication to wrestling. Stoner — who is in his 22nd season as coach — became the 16th wrestling coach in WPIAL wrestling history to win 300 matches when Butler beat Kittanning 51-21 Tuesday night.

Stoner ranks fifth among active WPIAL coaches in wins and is 92 wins behind former Seneca Valley coach Ken Lockey for the Butler County record.

Under Stoner's guidance, the Golden Tornado is 300-143 since he took over the program before the 1993-94 season.

Butler has produced 19 college wrestlers, one WPIAL champion, eight PIAA qualifiers and made the team playoffs 12 times, including the last eight seasons.

Aaron Pascazi, a 2006 Butler graduate who works in children and youth services in Washington County, said Stoner's influence has him focus on the right way and not the easy way.

“He expects everything to be held to higher standards,” said Pascazi, who wrestled collegiality at Seton Hill University. “That's something I heard him say 1,000 times. He's so true to that belief. He expects perfection and won't settle.”

Accomplishing perfection with the Golden Tornado program was far from a guarantee.

Any success would have been viewed as progress.

Butler, which was in its second year as a program, went 0-11 the year before Stoner took over.

Stoner, a 1986 Southmoreland graduate, had just finished up his wrestling career at Slippery Rock University in 1991.

Stoner fell one match short of earning NCAA Division I All-American honors during his senior year.

Then he went over to take over a group of kids that knew little about the sport.

Lyneil Mitchell, a 1998 Butler graduate, never wrestled before ninth grade. Wrestling to Mitchell was about turnbuckles and Hulk Hogan.

“His philosophy was foreign to Butler. This was like an old-school movie, where a coach shows up and leads a group of misfits,” Mitchell said. “He's a real wrestler. None of us knew what that meant.”

Most weren't even sure how to dress. He didn't have wrestling shoes and wore boxers instead of compression shorts and suffered some chafing.

Lacking a training partner, Mitchell would often get paired with Stoner.

Early training sessions involved Stoner lifting the nearly 40-pound heavier Mitchell off the mat and over his head.

Mitchell never stopped improving, winning the program's first section title at 189 pounds in his junior season.

The next year, he became the program's first state qualifier by placing second at WPIALs.

“I think he was happier for me,” said Mitchell, who would later become a two-time All-American at Gannon University. “I faced my fears and overcame all that stuff. I'm not sure he knew where the program was going.”

Stoner knew how he wanted the program to get there.

Practices were run in the same manner as colleges do them and he would pick up wrestlers for workouts.

Jason Parker once crashed with Stoner's parents and watched old VHS tapes of Stoner's matches his dad had recorded on the way to a summer tournament.

“I've really gained an appreciation for that,” Parker said. “He was 25-27. When I hit that age, I couldn't imagine giving up a weekend in the summer to sit at a wrestling tournament.”

The high standards he set for his kids, Stoner has for himself.

Outside of his official duties, Stoner assembled a 108-page record book that would make small colleges envious.

The book is updated yearly with statistics, photos, school records and compilations of newspaper articles.

“He always goes above and beyond,” said 2008 graduate Alex Evanoff. “I'm sure he's watching tape right now.”

Work ethic is something Korey Caudill, a 2013 graduate, thinks about when he's wrestling at Gannon University.

At Butler, the focus was on intense technical drilling. All moves were to be executed at 100 percent. When the effort or performance isn't there, compliments are hard to come by.

“A lot of guys feel like it's hard to get a compliment, but he will if you're performing like he thinks you should be performing,” Caudill said. “I love that old-school technique. Face to the grindstone, go after it, push people around the mat and win matches like that.”

Stoner's attitude and fire are still flowing as he helms one of his youngest Golden Tornado teams. His expectations haven't wavered.

They never do.