Takedown Report

Why the Marine Corps has become deeply invested in wrestling’s future

The speaker list included some of the heaviest hitters in the wrestling family with Jordan Burroughs and Hollywood star Chris Pratt headlining last summer’s United States Wrestling Foundation Gala. But the message that produced the longest and loudest ovation that night was delivered by a guy whose wrestling and professional career has unfolded primarily outside the public spotlight and inside war-torn pockets of the world.

Marine Corps Maj. Jared Reddinger stood at the dais last August in downtown Los Angeles, explaining why the Marines have aligned themselves with wrestling, telling how the sport shaped his life and talking about the characteristics he developed on the mat that pulled him through some of the most intense battles he faced in Iraq. “I’ve been in some environments in which nobody wants to be in,” Reddinger said. “The things that have gotten me through that, it hasn’t just been the training that the Marine Corps has provided me, it’s been the lessons I’ve learned as a 6-year-old kid in a wrestling room.” For me, that week in Southern California — at the USWF Gala and the men’s freestyle training camp at Camp Pendleton — crystallized the symbiotic relationship between wrestling and the Marine Corps. It shed light on why the Marines are deeply invested in the sport and why they, too, have an eye on high school wrestling participation numbers across the country. Rest of the story at http://www.trackwrestling.com/PortalPost.jsp?TIM=1548949483247&twSessionId=msgubkwmmi&postId=1174716132&mc_cid=9dd679a0fb&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b

February 5, 2019 - Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized