Southeastern Greco and Freestyle Championships

[Jonesee]

I am heading to Atalnta this weekend. I have 2 sons entered in the SE Greco and Freestyle Wrestling Championships. The oldest is a Junior and the youngest is freshman wrestling in the Cadet division.

Anyone else on here going? or possibly have a son or friend entered? Please let me know.

I was told by TrackWrestling.com they already have over 2500 wrestlers registered. It should be some tough compeition. I am going to be very nervous until Sunday when it is over.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Well good luck to your sons if they haven't already started yet. I'm a huge wrestling fan up here in PA. Also I see that you're in North Carolina have you ever been to Super 32?

[Jonesee]

We just got back. Huge competition. Although it was the "Southest" Regional Championships for Greco and Freestyle, there were teams and athletes from all over the United States. More states than I can list. There was even a team from Oregon that had traveled for the meet. 1,450 wrestlers from all over the US.

My oldest did OK but didn't place. My yongest son was frankly overwhelmed by the competition but he is only 14 and still held his own. The young man we work out with finished 1st in Greco and took 2nd in Freestyle. His 2 day match record was 11-1. He had 7 matches the second day.

So many world class athletes there. And that is not an understatement. Kids that are freshmen and sophomores that have already won high school state championships and making their state national teams. The Brandon Florida team is absolutely loaded. Their kids are still young, frosh, soph and juniors and they were winning every match I watched. No wonder that school has thier record and had the streak.

As for the Super 32. We had plans and couldn't make it last year. Will definitely be there this coming year. My sons gave up football about 2 weeks ago (talk about a p!ssed football coach...) to concentrate on wrestling. They will be wrestling year round now. We try to limit our travel to the southeast, FL, GA, AL. Although last year my oldest competed in the Univ of Oklahoma T-giving Open. He also did 2 weeks wreslting in your neck of the woods in PA at JRobb.

For any of you young fathers with young kids. Think about wrestling. You can start wrestling through USAW at 5 years old and it is a blast. Wreslting, like baseball is a skills sport. The more years you wrestle, the better you get. Miss a year and you drop a step on those that didn't. Kids can come out for high school wrestling and never wrestle before and do a phenomenal job. But, if those same kids had some years of experience they would be looking at high school championships and national level competition.

And no other sport puts you in the condition you are in for wrestling. Football players fresh from their season move into wrestling and even the running backs find themselves tossing cookies form the work-outs. The hand and foot speed they acquire is unmatched, and the the ability to think strategically and rationally under a huge amount of competitive pressure can be used in every other sport. If you have a 70 pounder playing pee wee football against 130 pounders and holding his own. Imagine what he can do against another 70 pounder 1 on 1. They will always wrestle other kids within 5-10 pounds of their own weight.

OK i will stop with the advertisement. We had fun in spite of no medals this weekend. There are always more tournaments...