This year’s Youth All-Stars Wrestling Camp has been moved to 25-29 July due to a scheduling conflict at Ocean Avenue Elementary School. The new all-day format is an exciting change and will provide plenty of time for wrestling, games, recess and more fun activities. Please visit the camp page and download a flier and registration for more information.
This year’s Youth All Stars Wrestling Camp will have a new all-day format. The camp will run 9 am – 3 pm from July 18-22. The camp is tentatively planned for Ocean Avenue Elementary School in Portland, ME. See our camp page for more details.
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The Portland wrestling team had this weekend highlighted on its calendar from the first pre-season meeting. This would be their first home meet of the year and the day they came together with others in the Portland wrestling community to remember Garrett Cormier, their brother, friend, and teammate who was killed in a car crash this past summer. It was also a golden opportunity to break the stranglehold Deering High held on their crosstown rivalry.
The Bulldogs started their big weekend wearing new team shirts in Garrett’s memory. Their pre-meet warm up was followed by Steve Schwartz’s moving speech and moment of silence. Steve is a PHS wrestling parent and friend of the Cormier family.
The Portland wrestlers carried the emotion into their first match of the day against Scarborough High School, winning 51-30. After a short break they beat the Deering High School 46-30 snapping a nearly 20 year losing streak.
It was a great step for the relatively young Bulldogs. They have a long season ahead but are determined to make a name for their team this year.
Any serious wrestler has heard the adage that champions are made during the off-season. Here are several summer camps in the area you can attend to hone your skills in preparation for next season. Check back tomorrow for a list of summer competitions you can attend.
Midshipman All-American Wrestling Camp
July 26-29th at Deering High School. The camp will concentrate on instruction and drilling for beginning to advanced wrestlers. It will cover techniques and drills from the feet, top, and bottom positions, and also some live wrestling. Camp participants will learn in a fun atmosphere under the direction of our experienced staff. The clinic is intended for wrestlers, ranging from 1st graders to seniors in high school
Contact Coach Al Kirk for more information at 207-797-6096 or jkirk1@maine.rr.com
Ken Chertow’s Gold Medal Training Camp
July 8-13, Merrimack College (Near Boston, MA)
Camp options for all ages and skill levels
More information is available on www.kenchertow.com or New England Camp Page
You should eat broccoli even if you hate it, according to Nick Kolegraff, an instructor at the Iowa Mentality Wrestling Clinic I attended this weekend. Sure, you should eat it because it’s good for your body but there’s much more to it than that. Making yourself do the right thing, even if you don’t want to is a trademark of great wrestlers everywhere. But Coach Kolegraff wanted all the wrestlers at his clinic to understand that this wrestler mentality can also make them great students, community leaders, professionals and even fathers.
The clinic featured two wrestlers from the 2010 University of Iowa national championship team: undefeated national champion Jay Borschel and national finalist Dan Dennis. It was organized by MIT wrestling club assistant coach Nick Kolegraff, a former University of Iowa wrestler, and head coach Tom Layte, former Div III national champion for Augsburg College.
I was amazed at the amount of knowledge these four men packed into a two-day clinic. Coach Kolegraff’s broccoli example was just one of many lessons I took away about sound technique, the Iowa approach to wrestling and the weekend’s overarching theme: how this mentality they have cultivated at the University of Iowa can help young wrestlers achieve greatness in all areas of their lives.
Please check back for more on the Iowa Mentality wrestling clinic as I go through my notes and apply these lessons to my own coaching philosophy and practices.
With the Youth All Stars Camp just three weeks away, we are publishing a first draft of this year’s schedule. You’ll notice some changes from last year. First, we will dedicate each of the first three days to skills and techniques for a given position (neutral, bottom, top). This will help the kids build on their learning and practice from one block to the next. We will cover more advanced techniques on day 4 including an introduction to freestyle wrestling. The final day of camp will cover basic freestyle skills and wrap up with a visit from Tom Layte. Feel free to comment or post questions about the schedule below.
Download a copy of the schedule here: Youth All Stars Summer Wrestling Camp Schedule
The early registration period has ended for the Youth All Stars Wrestling Camp. We will continue to accept registrations until June 28, the first day of camp. If your wrestler plans to attend, please send us an email of give us a call so we can plan accordingly. We will be publishing the camp schedule within the next week.
This may seem obvious to those who are familiar with the sport but wrestling is great for a child’s physical development. The following excerpt from The Parents Guide to Youth Wrestling, written by Bill Campbell explores some of the specific benefits.
Sports offer opportunities for children to improve their strength, flexibility and coordination, while having fun. Most sports activities rely more on some muscle groups and less on others. For example, most sports focus primarily on pushing motions (leg/arm extension) such as throwing, hitting, kicking, jumping and running.
Experts believe that unilateral (equal emphasis on all muscle groups) physical development is especially important in young athletes. Isolated development at an early age, over a long period, increases the risk of injury and limits long-term foundational growth. Swimming, gymnastics and wrestling are among the few sports that engage both pulling and pushing muscle groups.
Of all the sports choices a parent and child can make, wrestling is perhaps the best sport for overall physical development because it involves all muscle groups, and requires the greatest balance of athletic skill. Not only does wrestling improve balance, speed, agility and intensity, but it strengthens virtually all muscle groups from hips, legs, torso and upper body, but also neck and grip strength.
Wrestling is the sport that can dramatically improve one’s ability to perform in other sports. A ten-year old, for example, who was considered by coaches to be a slow base runner, later won a large and very competitive multi-county base running contest after only one season of wrestling. Many soccer and football coaches are known to recruit wrestlers because of their superior athletic capabilities, and parents often notice improvements in athletic ability after a season of wrestling.
Registration is underway for our Youth All-Stars Wrestling camp this summer. There have been some problems downloading the registration form from the camp page so I’m including it here as well. The camp runs from June 28-July2, 9 am-Noon and is open to all wrestlers in grades K-5. Remember, there is a discount for those who register before June 1.
The Iowa Mentality Wrestling Camp is coming to northern MA and partnering with PHS Wrestling alum Tom Layte.
I know this camp is too old for our youth wrestlers but it’s open to all middle school and high school kids so please pass it along if you know somebody that would be interested. There is an item of interest here for the little guys. Some of you know that Tom Layte, the head coach at MIT and organizer of this event, does a clinic at our Youth All Stars wrestling camp. Tom wresled at PHS and won an NCAA National Championship while at Augsburg College.
Here are more details about the Iowa Mentality Wrestling Camp Tom is putting on:
Featuring:
Jay Borschel
2010 University of Iowa Undefeated National Champion
2x All-American ’08 ’10
2x Academic All-American
Dan Dennis
2010 University of Iowa National Finalist
2x All-American ’09 ’10
Tom Layte
Mass. Institute of Technology Head Coach
Division III National Champion; Augsburg College
Tournament OW
Nick Kolegraff
Mass. Institute of Technology Assistant Coach
Wrestled at Iowa 2005-2009
Academic All-Big Ten
Where: Wakefield High School, MA
When: June 26 and 27 9am-5pm
Who: ages 10 – hs senior
Cost: $140, includes DVD of all sessions, Autographed t-shirt, lunch
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