Commentary: Making a case for more high school wrestling
Often-overlooked sport holds important lessons for student- athletes
By Dennis Begley, Correspondent
During my high school years with the Monty Tech wrestling program, I often wished there were more teams in the region. Besides the Bulldogs, there were only two other local programs: Leominster and Nashoba Regional.
That fact felt, and still feels, like a missed opportunity. The sport of wrestling still has so much to offer local athletes, and there are plenty of reasons for high schools to work toward investing in programs of their own.
The effort pays off
Anybody who knows me will tell you I’m a horrible athlete. In middle school, however, I discovered wrestling, and it changed my life. I had found a sport that truly was all about how much work you were willing to put in. If the effort was there, you would be successful. For kids who want to be part of something, but lack the size, speed or coordination to excel at other activities, a sport that separates athletes into weight classes and relies as much on dedication as natural ability is a perfect fit.
A different winter sport
After the fall season ends, football players are told to either start lifting or find a winter sport. Since some can’t shoot a basketball or skate to the level of their peers, lifting it is. Wrestling gives these players a different way to keep in shape and keep that competitive mindset during the winter season.
Many professional football players credit wrestling for their success on the gridiron. Included among those ranks are Balitmore Ravens legend Ray Lewis and former New England offensive lineman Stephen Neal, who never played NCAA football and was actually a world-champion wrestler before moving on to a career in football, where he won three Super Bowls with the Patriots. Hall of Fame coach John Madden once said he would have all his offensive linemen wrestle if he could.
Read more at : http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/sports/ci_32752282/commentary-making-case-more-high-school-wrestling#ixzz5vC72eZoB
Brighton’s Amine brothers wrestling internationally for San Marino
TDR Ed.’s Notes ; Certainly an unique story.
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As they moved up the ranks in their wrestling careers, Malik and Myles Amine of Brighton dreamed of competing in the Olympic Games. It’s a dream that may very well come true — just not in the colors they originally envisioned. Rather than competing in red, white and blue as natives of the United States, the Amines are wrestling on the international level for the San Marino, a small nation contained entirely within the borders of Italy.
They have Sammarinese citizenship because their mother’s grandfather came to the United States from San Marino in the early 1900s. “The Sammarinese women, when they marry, their kids when they have children get citizenship,” said their mother, Marcy (Mularoni) Amine. “So, it passes down to their kids. My kids have had citizenship since they were born. Between their 18th and 19th birthday, they have to reaffirm their citizenship.” The process of getting the Amine brothers eligible to wrestle for San Marino took about a year and a half, with their mother doing much of the heavy lifting to make it possible. By doing so, they forfeited the opportunity to wrestle for the United States. The Detroit Catholic Central graduates competed in freestyle for San Marino for the first time at the European Championships in April in Romania.
Rest of the results and story at https://www.livingstondaily.com/story/sports/olympics/2019/07/29/brighton-brothers-wrestling-internationally-san-marino/1782001001/
What we learned from college wrestlers’ summer 2019 freestyle seasons
By SHANNON SCOVEL of NCAA.COM | JULY 29, 2019
With the 2019 U23, junior and senior wrestling world teams nearly decided, it’s time to take a look back at how some of the nation’s top college wrestlers fared during these summer freestyle tournaments. First though, here’s a little more on this style of wrestling if you are not familiar with it. Freestyle, which differs from the college wrestling style of folkstyle, is the style of wrestling showcased in the Olympics and across international tournaments. The two styles are scored and structured differently. Folkstyle matches are set up as three periods of a total of seven minutes and freestyle matches are two periods for a total of six minutes. Freestyle style runs at a faster pace than folkstyle and focuses on back exposure. Wrestlers can earn points for riding time in folkstyle— holding an opponent down on the mat and working to score — and cannot in freestyle. The next two years will be particularly important for wrestlers to compete in freestyle as the Olympic Trials get closer given that the Tokyo Olympics will be contested in freestyle. Rest of the story at https://www.ncaa.com/news/wrestling/article/2019-07-25/what-we-learned-college-wrestlers-summer-2019-freestyle-seasons?mc_cid=be8f44f47e&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b
TDR blog
After 20 seasons of publicizing wrestling The TakeDown Report’s (TDR) focus has changed to the collecting of college coaching records from North America since 1903. We will continue to recognize and reward successful wrestlers in eastern North Carolina (east of Raleigh & Fayetteville), assist with schools in starting or re-starting a team and this blog. Join us on our FaceBook Page – “The TakeDown Report” for photos and news. Please send results, stories, links and news to pass along. E-mail us at takedownreport@gmail.com
Martin Fleming, Editor
Takedown Report
Takedown Report 