The Hurricane wrestling team plans to publish a photo of varsity team/returning starters combined with a calendar of scheduled matches. The calendar will be posted in many locals business and public places to help us generate interest especially for the home matches this season. The team is seeking sponsors for the calendar and all sponsors will be displayed on the final printed version. If you would like to be a sponsor or know someone who might, please share this information. The attached form has all of the particulars and the Hurricanes thank you in advance for the consideration. Go Canes!

Eight Reasons Why Your Kid Should Wrestle

In the next few months, many children will have the opportunity to participate in wrestling for the first time. Just like the kids, many parents will embrace the opportunity, while others will resist. Because of the timely life lessons wrestling teaches children, I urge everyone to seriously consider trying the sport, if only for one season.

Usually, those who resist wrestling are unfamiliar with the sport. Wrestling can be an intimidating sport, but it’s also one with great potential to develop young adults, both physically and mentally.

My own son resisted until seventh grade. “I don’t want to roll around with a bunch of sweaty guys,” he told me, echoing the popular mantra of basketball players everywhere. My wife, with her medical background, wasn’t very supportive either, citing the skin rashes she saw wrestlers bring to her clinic. I had wrestled in high school – I wasn’t very good, but I wrestled – and I knew what it could teach kids, so I persisted until both agreed to a one-year trial season.

That was four seasons ago – two in junior high, one on the junior varsity team and last year’s varsity season. In that time, he’s experienced extreme highs and extreme lows. There were times that he enjoyed wrestling almost as much as football, and there were times that he talked about quitting. There were dominating wins and puzzling losses, weeks when nothing could go wrong and weeks when everything went wrong. More important than all of that are the lessons that have helped him develop into the young man he is today.

1. There is no entitlement in wrestling. It doesn’t matter where you are ranked or whether or not your coach likes you, your value as a wrestler depends on your most recent performance on the mat. Last year, I watched a wrestler, who spent most of the season ranked #2, lose two tough matches in the district tournament and fail to qualify for the state tournament. He was a senior who had placed at the state tournament the previous year, but that and his ranking didn’t matter – only what happened on the mat. In a matter of minutes, his season was over. In wrestling, you must constantly earn what you get.
2. Wrestling teaches toughness. I got my first bloody nose in youth boxing at the age of 7, and never forgot it. At first, I wanted to cry and get out of the ring, but something deep inside me brought me back to the fight. Too many kids make it through childhood without a bloody nose. In wrestling, we have “blood time.” Wrestlers get their mouths smashed, their noses bloodied, their eyes blackened and their joints twisted. Wrestling teaches athletes how to work through pain and discomfort. Wrestling teaches toughness.
3. Wrestling teaches discipline. Because they have to make weight and need to be in superb shape to succeed, successful wrestlers maintain their bodies like finely tuned machines. Even away from practice and competition, they can’t forget that they are wrestlers. When their friends are feasting on fast food and sodas or staying up too late, wrestlers have to make decisions that will help them on the mat. They know that slipping on discipline will have negative consequences on the mat.

Read the rest of this great article by Mitch Arnold and learn more about his personal story here:

https://mitcharnold.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/eight-reasons-why-your-kid-should-wrestle/

The Hurricane grapplers began their 2015-16 campaign by spending last Sunday night (11/15) on the mats. First doing some team activities and then ultimately sleeping on the mats as a team. Monday morning, the first day of the wrestling season, began with the 38 members of the team rolling out bright and early at 5am for their first practice. Probably the first team to practice in the entire state, the practice is symbolic of dedication that is required to be successful individually and as a team in this demanding sport. The Hurricanes have just short of 30 practices until the first tournament of the season, the Sprig Gardner in East Hampton on December 12th. See you on the mats!