Sean C. Morgan
Sweet Home High School was Wrestling Central earlier this week as the state’s top wrestlers converged to prepare for the national Junior and Cadet championship tournaments in Fargo, N.D., while others trained for a trip to New Zealand, or just tried to get better.
Camp director Steve Thorpe said approximately 170 wrestlers participated, 90 of them headed to Fargo after qualifying in regional tournaments. The national tournament runs July 19-26.
Also present was a Canadian team.
“The Canadians have been coming every year since 2001,” Thorpe said. “They like coming here.”
The 15-member Oregon cultural exchange team, which includes Sweet Home wrestlers Anthony Hardee and Kobe Olson, will leave for New Zealand July 23.
Junior Tyler Schilling and Cadet Tyler Fincher are headed to Fargo, along with Colton Schilling, now wrestling at Cal Poly SLO, who is going along as a coach. The national team members are leaving early Wednesday, July 16, for the two-day trip.
Thorpe said organizers decided this year to keep numbers down – the camp has had as many as 230 wrestlers in the past.
“We didn’t want 200 people here. We’ve got our national team here and that’s really all that matters.”
Wrestlers said they like the camp because it not only offers quality instruction from experienced coaches such as Mike Simon of Thurston, Roseburg’s Steve Lander, Neil Russo of Newberg, and others around the state, but because it also offers a high level of competition.
“It is a great camp,” said Tim Harman, a two-time state champion from West Linn who went undefeated as a junior. “It gets you in shape. I came in 16 pounds over and I’ve already cut about eight pounds. It gets you in the mindset to win a national title.”
Harman said he’s been to other camps, including one at Penn State, but the bar is higher at this year’s Sweet Home camp.
“We have state champs here, left and right,” he said. “I come into the room and I expect not to be taken down once. I come in here and if I get taken down three times, it’s a good day.”
Thorpe said the camp is a particularly significant opportunity for his own wrestlers, the ones who take advantage of it.
“The quality of athlete here is amazing,” he said. “It gives my Sweet Home wrestlers a variety of guys to work out with. It gives them a variety of coaching and it gives them an upper hand. And ultimately that’s what I’m about. It gives kids that can’t afford wrestling camp an opportunity.
“We have kids that don’t come to this camp, but I tell you what, if the Yankees were in town and you didn’t go to batting practice that day…” he trailed off.
Colton Schilling, who won a Greco national championship earlier this year, noted that he has been attending the Sweet Home camps for 10 years “so it must be helping, right?” he joked.
“This is the biggest tournament of the year,” he said. “When you have all the best kids in one room, it’s going to be a good camp.”
Though each year’s camp includes plenty of exercise, including a run up the murderous Turbyne Hill, the workouts are mixed with games and outings to the lake and other local attractions.
“Thorpe does good job of balancing it,” Schilling said. “You don’t get worn out, but you get a workout.”
Alex Rich, a three-time state champion from Corvallis, agreed.
“It’s kind of a last push before Fargo,” he said. “The activities are fun. They keep it lively. There are tons of kids in here who are tough. It’s a good chance to bond and it’s good to see other people besides the kids you practice with every day. It’s helpful.”
Thorpe said the community’s bond with wrestling makes it a good location for such an event.
“Sweet Home is a wrestling community,” he said. “It has been since the 50s, the Bob Majors era, the Norm Davis era and now the Steve Thorpe era.
“I’m grateful to have a place like Sweet Home and a school like this to host it. We’ve got a wrestling room and three gymnasiums full of mats. How can it get better than that?”