Aurora City Schools Wrestling Program – Part 3
High School Level
Varsity – We compete in the CVC and participate in all OHSAA provided opportunities. We insist on the schedule being demanding and challenging, but not destructive to the individual growth of our students. In other words, our schedule will be changed to consider the strength and skill level of our upcoming athletes. Activity (practice and/or events) for all high school wreslters is six days a week. In addition, our strength program conducts two sessions weekly – none during standard practice times.
Green Team - We provide a little more than half of a regular schedule in which our second team wrestlers compete against other varsity teams. The teams on this schedule are carefully selected to provide some potential success, and provides our younger wrestlers opportunity to grow, earn a varsity letter, and be force fed into a varsity environment.
Junior Varsity – We again provide a schedule, slightly less than a full JV schedule, as many of these athletes will be also performing on the Green Team. As the combination of Green and JV is more than one full schedule, our third team wrestlers are insured of getting some action vs other teams. This provides all opportunities for success, for challenge, and for growth. Our goals include increasing our participation to around 45-50 on our high school teams and providing a full three schedules.
Additional Items: We have a number of activites and items that enhance the success, enjoyment and pride within our program. Some of these are as follows:
Aurora Wrestling Camp – a summer camp offered at Aurora High School for grades seven through ten. The camp is not for those new to wrestling, but those interested in a major workout to improve their readiness for the next level of competition. We staff with primarily Aurora Coaches and alumni, however, we always bring at least one local guest clinician. The camp is open for members from any community, however, we do offer a discount for Aurora wrestlers and for the Fire Club Members.
Suburban Freestyle Spring Wrestling League – A freestyle league providing growth within our sport for those at both the High School and Middle School levels. The program runs six weeks, provides five weeks of dual meet competition and two freestyle tournaments.
Aurora Monster Wrestling Tournament – Although a fund raiser for the entire athletic department, the wreslting community comes together to make it work successfully. Without this program, some of our athltes may not compete in the off season at all. It does provide an addtioinal activity to add to the cohesiveness of the wrestling family.
Lil’ Sis Program – The Aurora Wrestling Lil’ Sis Program is a great asset to our coaches. Run by a parent volunteer, the girls are organized to decorate lockers, put up signs, and promote our sport at the high school level. The girls are taught to score, time, and video matches. They basically work and permit us to host a large numbe3r of multiple team events. Although a high school activity, they also help with the Harmon Tourney and the Monster. They are recognized at our end of the season award program with statistician awards.
The Ohio State Wrestling Camp – We strongly encourage our wrestlers to attend The Ohio State University Wrestling Camp. We encourage them to attend the week our head coach works to assist in providing a team atmosphere to this activity. Those with solid fundamentals are encouraged to participate in the Competition Camp – which insures each wrestler between 15 and 20 matches in the week, as well as solid instruction. Those with less experience are encouraged to participate in the Takedown and Leg Attack Camp – which provides a great deal of instruction with limited full go competition. Our most successful wrestlers have included this camp one or more times into their high school career.
Open Mats – We will open the gym for preseason Open Mats in the fall. This occurs one day a week from Mid-September through October. These open mats will include an opportunity for activity in the weight room in the fall. They will not start until after Labor Day, to further encourage our athletes to participate in a fall sport. In the spring and summerl we encourage our wrestlers to participate in Open Mats on Wednesday at Solon High School. They start in mid-April and continue through July. Competition in available at Solon for our athletes at all competitive levels and offers a great opportunity for improvement.
Lifting – Taking you through the school year. We will have a seven week session, beginning in September (after Labor day) and ending around November 1st. This will be two days a week. Our preseason lifting program has as its purpose – endurance, power, and strength. We resume lifting in late November. This is our Circuit Training program – run by our strength coach two days a week. This will emphasise explosion, quickness and endurance and will continue through the season. We take March and April off of lifting. In May through July, we reinstate our lifting, but now strictly a power program. We do not lift in August to permit athletes to get involved in their fall sports.
Trips – We have tried to take a minimum of one nice trip during the career of each and every high school wrestler. We have been to upstate New York, Kentucky, and we have taken at least six trips to Florida. Logically, to cover each and every student, a trip should be taken every four years, however, we have not always followed that. We also have traveled when we have had a large number of younger wrestlers that need to come together as a group and, although having good potential, may not be ready for the heavy competition of the 32 team highly competetive tournaments in Northeast Ohio.
As this is getting to be a long section – I will continue with more items in Part 4.
