Youth Wrestling Gaining Momentum on Virginia Peninsula

Originally printed in Saturday, January 11, 2014 DAILY PRESS sports section, during Virginia Duals weekend.


Two years ago, New Kent (HS) wrestling coach Mike Faus received an interesting phone call leading up to the Virginia Duals.

A team had dropped out of the National High School Division bracket. Would he be willing to put his Trojan team into the open slot?

Where other coaches might have shied away from the prospect of being embarrassed, Faus willingly accepted the challenge.

Amazingly, the Trojans won their first match, a 37-23 decision over a powerful Nazareth (PA) team.

“They were a beat up Nazareth team, and we might have had our best squad ever,” admits Faus,

However, in the next round, New Kent was brought back to earth, as South Plainfield blanked the Trojans 73-0.

In spite of the reality check, Faus is now willingly entering his team in the most elite high school division at the annual Duals.

“My theory is that we want to go into post-season competition with losing (individual) records. It shows that we are battle tested, and that we’ve been through a tough grind, but are ready for the postseason.”

Competing at prestigious meets such as the War at the Shore and the NRAL tournament in Raleigh have helped the Trojans earn quality mat time as they prepare for a key dual meet against rival Poquoson (on Jan. 28) and postseason competition in the 3A classification.

But the biggest difference in New Kent’s improvement, reflects a trend that is sweeping across Hampton Roads.

“One of the biggest things we’ve done is start the middle school group,” admits Faus.

At New Kent, the middle school team sprouted off of a consistent youth program. Originally founded by Andy Hintz (“the Godfather of New Kent wrestling,” says Faus), the kids team generally sees 30-40 kids from ages 5-12 compete each year.

The youth movement has spread like wildfire. In Newport News, Oliver Walmon has seen his Warrior team grow from 40 to 94 wrestlers in one year. Former Hampton High wrestling coach Ron McRae left his post to take over the growing Pin2Win youth program there. McRae replaced John Swartz, who moved on to become the head coach at Smithfield High, but who had overseen their Smithfield Youth Wrestling Club from 2000-2006.

The difference is showing, especially to coaches who are working to continue the trend.

“We don’t have a high transition between our youth program and here,” says Gloucester coach Ricky Pierce. “The problem is that we don’t have a middle school program. The kids are falling a bit behind, and the first time some of them wrestle is right after I pull them out of the hallway at Gloucester.”

To Pierce’s credit, he remains undeterred, and also entered his Dukes in the National Division. When asked why he chose the toughest bracket, Pierce was unapologetic. “Why wouldn’t you want to wrestle in the National Division?”

“I don’t need to pad my stats or my record as a coach. I don’t look at the score the way that others do. My job is to do the best I can to give these kids the opportunity to get noticed. They can come here, wrestle in the National Division and be seen by college coaches.”

To prove his point, Pierce referred to his 145-lb wrestler A.J. Ransom as an example.

“(Ransom) had a good match today. Unfortunately, he lost. But he wrestled some tough kids; in fact, one of them was nationally ranked. The good thing is, we saw some areas where we’ll need to make adjustments which will make him better later.”

“If they wrestle kids who are less (talented), they might get away with things that will hurt them later. We want our kids to rise to the occasion. It’s something I call leveling off.”

Thanks to the youth movement, at this year’s Duals, local wrestlers won’t have to rely on leveling off with moves learned in the ninth grade.