May, 11, 2022

Hi Boosters,

Updates from the Jerome & TW Wrestling community!

2022 Polar Plunge

Our 2nd Annual Polar Plunge event was a success! This is a fundraiser event for the Jerome Wrestling program that takes place each January. Once again our boys braved the cold water, once again they walked away victorious. These are the moments that make us coaches so proud of these young athletes. Jumping in water in the winter is not an easy feat. Every single kid on the team who showed up that day jumped in the water. It speaks volumes about the character and mentality of our team. These boys toed the line and they live their lives with a "One Team" mentality. Along with our Wrestlers, the Athletic Director, the Stake Presidency, three teachers, and the Mayor jumped in. What a great representation of our community. It goes to show what type of place Jerome, Idaho is. These boys are lucky to have the support they have. Jerome is a strong community, a place where we care for one another and rally together. There are so many people invested in the youth of this town, I'm continually humbled by the support we receive. Thanks to all who supported!

Jerome High School Season

The Jerome Tigers finished this season with a 6th place finish at the 2022 Idaho High School State Wrestling Tournament. We're super proud of our boys for all the hard work and effort they put into their training, and preparing for the final tournament of the season. Each year the State tournament is joyful and a heartache. It's an emotional event, but that is what makes it so special. As a Coach you experience many highs and lows over the 2-day event. Wrestling is an individual sport as the athlete is on the mat alone, in front of hundreds of spectators, working to accomplish their goals and make their dreams become a reality. Because of this you share unique experiences individually with each athlete separately. Some accomplish their goals, while others fall short, all within a few minute time period. It can quickly become an emotional roller coaster ride as we are so invested into these athletes. But when the tournament is over we always hold our heads high knowing that our Jerome wrestlers mean so much more to us than wins and losses. We take pride in knowing our team is one of the hardest working groups of kids in the State of Idaho. We take pride in knowing our team is one of the most respected teams in the State with some of the most respected competitors. Our boys are clean cut and look sharp. They leave an impact almost everywhere they go. We know this because we constantly receive feedback and compliments from coaches and parents at the tournaments we compete at. They carry themselves with dignity, watch their language and respect their surroundings. This is a priority within our program, building character in our athletes is of the utmost importance. Our pride and success comes in knowing that no matter the results, our athletes represented themselves, their families and our community well.

We had a total of 17 athletes qualify for the State Tournament with 6 bringing home medals and placing in the top 6. The 6 athletes to place were: Matthew Young (3rd), Rhyland Turner (4th), Gavin Williamson (4th), Robby Ortega (4th), Colby Coates (4th), Levi Lockett (6th). We are super proud of these boys. Gavin, Levi and Colby will be returning next year to compete for Jerome in the 22-23 season.

College Bound

I want to give a shout out to Robby Ortega who's graduating this year and has received a scholarship to continue his education and wrestle in college at Graceland University. Robby is a 2X State Placer, placing 4th at both the 2021 Idaho State Tournament and the 2022 Idaho State Tournament. This will be the end of a long "Club Wrestling" career for Robby Ortega, as he was one of the first kids to attend the club in the early days of TW Wrestling back in 2017. Robby is a prime example of a young athlete in Jerome who has massively benefited from the Jerome & TW Wrestling programs. Every trip we've ever taken with the club, Robby has been in tow. He has a wealth of knowledge and great love for the sport of wrestling. He's consistently showed up and put in the time and work. This sport has changed his entire life. I've traveled more with Robby than almost anyone I've been acquainted with. Through club wrestling I've had the awesome opportunity to take him to the following States: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, North Carolina, Virgina, Michigan. All of the wrestling coaches who've been a part of Robby's wrestling career are super proud of him. Robby makes for the 11th athlete in the past 6 years, who's been associated with our programs to make the decision to compete at the next level in college wrestling. Six of whom are still actively competing.

TW Youth Wrestling Season

2022 TW Youth Wrestling season was the biggest turnout we've had to date with a total of 106 registered wrestlers! This season consists of the age groups K-8th Grade and the season runs from January to April 16th. This is such an awesome age group to work with, they are young and energetic. Sometimes exhausting, but extremely rewarding. This is an important age group of kids to work with as you can have a big impact on their development and be a part of helping them navigate the growth stages of life. It's an important age group to help them be surrounded by good influences, friends and mentors. We have a lot of outstanding parents of kids in this age group that are actively engaged in their kids' lives. They come around the wrestling room and show up to the tournaments, getting to know the other parents and athletes in the club. As a coach I see it turning into a wrestling family. Parents begin to look out for each other's kids, they give them rides, buy them snacks or food and take care of one another, it becomes one big strong support system. This is what it's all about and I see this getting stronger and stronger each year. This is truly how we carry out our mission statement 'We believe in our youth - We believe in our communities - We believe through the sport of wrestling we can build strong youth and communities'

In February we traveled with a few of our TW Youth wrestlers to Reno, Nevada to compete in the Rumble in Reno, wrestling tournament. This was a great opportunity for our kids to see tough competition from around the Western part of the United States. We had a total of 16 wrestlers compete with 13 of them bringing home medals placing in the top 6! This was an overall great experience for our wrestlers, filled with many bonding opportunities between athletes and families. Team wise the TW Wrestling program was in the top 16 out of roughly 180 teams from around the country. It was a great showing from our young athletes! The 13 athletes to place were: Lucca Villa (2nd), Gabe Avila (2nd), Will Lebsack (3rd), Rylan Skaggs (3rd), Reese Nebeker (4th), Payton King (4th), Olivia Gutierrez (4th), Jovah Olivas (4th), Joshua Martinez (4th), Fabian Pierce (4th), Jacob Martinez (5th), Matthew Olivas (6th), Langston Dahl (6th).

Next up for the TW Youth group was the IDAWAY State Tournament held at the Ford Idaho Events Center, April 16th. Unfortunately, we do not get the turnout at the State tournament I'd like each year because it's late in the season. Once kids get back from spring break they have a lot of other sports starting up, so our numbers tend to drop a bit. But TW had a strong showing this year for only having 15 wrestlers entered into the State Tournament. As a team we took 9th and nearly all the top 8 teams above TW had double the number of Wrestlers entered into the tournament. I'm super proud of how our kids competed this year, they performed well and put a lot of team points on the board with such a small number of competitors! The 12 athletes to place were: Payton King (1st), Lucca Villa (1st), Will Lebsack (1st), Ricky Carnline (2nd), Reese Nebeker (2nd), Joshua Martinez (2nd), Jacob Martinez (3rd), Tristen Ellis (4th), Weston Nebeker (4th), Olivia Gutierrez (6th), Rylan Skaggs (6th) Pfischer Carnline (6th).

Worlds Greatest Wrestling Event

Every March is the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championship tournament. This is considered by most to be the greatest wrestling event on the planet. Prestige wise, the Olympic Games are the pinnacle of our sport. But as far as competition, fan experience and excitement. Nothing compares to the NCAA tournament! It's 3-days of the toughest, grittiest and most intense wrestling you'll watch. As coaches this event is as exciting to us as Disneyland is to kids. We love this event and many of us try to attend. This year it was held in Detroit and it turned into a great opportunity to include some of our Jerome High School athletes to spark more interest in competing at the next level and help them see what this sport is like as a fan. Coach Larsen and I traveled to the event with his son (Troy Larsen) and two other Jerome Wrestlers (Robby Ortega & Levi Lockett). A memory these boys will never forget. One week after the event I received a text from one of the boys who will be returning to compete for Jerome next year, telling me he really wanted to wrestle in College. Ultimately, this is the reason for doing things like this. You never know the impact you're going to have on an athlete and what might spark their interest and plant the seed. We do the best we can as coaches to guide and direct our athletes, and provide opportunities for growth. Helping them achieve their goals is important to our entire coaching staff, whether it has to do with wrestling or not.

TW Spring/Summer Season

The spring/summer season is designed to provide continued training outside of the High School and TW Youth seasons and opportunities to travel with the sport of wrestling. This season starts in March after the High School season is over and the room transforms into High School club wrestling. After the K-8th grade group is done competing in April, I give them a few weeks off and we mix in some of the 6th-8th Graders into the group. We do a lot of traveling during this season as the tournaments are usually spread throughout Idaho and the surrounding States.

In April we traveled to Reno with the High School group to compete at the Reno Worlds Tournament. This is a really competitive tournament as it gathers many of the most dedicated wrestlers from around the country. This was one of the more memorable trips as we experienced a few "Firsts" with some of the athletes in the group. As soon as we crossed the Nevada border (60 miles from Jerome) into Jackpot, two of the kids told me this was their first time in Nevada. We ate at a "Denny's" Restaurant in Reno and miraculously 30% of the kids in our group had never been to a Denny's before. One of the wrestlers proceeded to interrogate the waitress about the "Endless" Breakfast option on the menu. He could not fathom the $9.99 price point and needed to know what the "Catch" was as he continued to repeat himself "So your telling me endless breakfast, means... endless breakfast." Shortly after the waitress asked another kid on the team how he'd like his eggs, he looked at me confused then up at the waitress and said "Well done please". I told the waitress our Idaho boys don't get out much . Each morning before competition we'd do a leisurely run to get moving for the day. After the run we did a cold water dive into the Truckee river to liven up the group. I don't know why I do this, but it's kind of turned into a tradition with all of these wrestling trips. No matter where we go, we end up finding our way into cold water after a run. We took a total of 8 wrestlers with only Mark Larsen coming home with a 3rd place finish. We had two others go out in the blood round (Placing Round). Tough tournament with tough competition, but overall the boys learned a lot and gained more experience to take with them into their future seasons.

We're currently training Freestyle, which is the style of wrestling they do at the Olympics. Freestyle wrestling can be a difficult transition for many of our wrestlers as the rules and point system is different. It can be a steep learning curve, but ultimately this is why we like to train it as it will help wrestlers with their overall progression. We'll continue to mix Freestyle wrestling into our training until the end of June when we head to Farmington, Utah to compete at the Western States Regional Tournament.

Last weekend was the Idaho Freestyle State Tournament and we had a total of 4 placers in the top 6: Jason Wethern (4th), Ethan Coy (4th), Jason Vazquez (5th), Gabe Paiz (5th).

Upcoming Events

June 23-25th: Western State Wrestling Tournament (Farmington, Utah) - Another great tournament opportunity for our kids to compete and get better. This tournament gathers kids from every Western State in the U.S.

June 29-July 3rd: All American Bread & Butter Wrestling Camp (Cusick, Washington) - This is our travel camp where we take the High School wrestlers too. It's held at a church camp along the Pend Oreille river. Kids get to stay in cabins and participate in a lot of activities outside of training sessions held each day. Last year we took 33 athletes, hoping to take more this year. It's a great opportunity for our kids to learn from some of the best wrestling clinicians in the country.

July 14-16th: Jerome Wrestling Camp (Jerome High School) - This year will mark our 6th annual Jerome wrestling camp. Each summer we host a camp that creates an opportunity for all wrestlers in the Magic Valley. Each year we bring in top notch clinicians that are some of the best wrestlers in the country and in the world. 2022 camp we're excited to have Seth Gross (2018 NCAA Champion, 3X NCAA All-American, Hodge Trophy Finalist) and Ronna Heaton Gross (Cadet World Champion, Cadet Silver Medalist, 4X World Team Member) as our two clinicians. Last summer we had around 112 wrestlers registered, this summer we are hoping to have around 130 wrestlers in attendance!

Until next time!

We believe in our youth

We believe in our communities

We believe through the sport of wrestling we can build strong youth and communities

Thank you!

Coach Seth Wright

January, 7, 2022

Hi Boosters,

We hope everyone had a pleasant Christmas and you're enjoying the new year! I'd like to share with you some of the happenings and highlights of our wrestling programs (TW Wrestling, Jerome Middle School, Jerome High School) from the past few months.

TW Club Wrestling (Fall Season)

Fall wrestling consists of a short 2-month season (September/October). We call this pre-season and use this time to dust off the cobwebs and start easing back into shape to get ready for our upcoming Middle School and High School seasons.

We started off the pre-season with an amazing opportunity for all wrestlers in the Magic Valley as we hosted a 1-day clinic with Ben Kjar. Ben is a Utah resident, an outstanding wrestler, businessman, mentor and public speaker. He was a 3X Utah High School State Champion and UVU's first ever NCAA D1 All-American. He runs a successful Real Estate company in Utah where he fixes and flips over 100 houses a year. He's also a highly sought after public speaker as he was born with Crouzon syndrome, a craniofacial anomaly. As a child, doctors said he'd need several reconstructive surgeries throughout his life and because of this he would not be able to participate in contact sports. Ben overcame these setbacks and became a very successful wrestler in High School and College. He now travels the globe teaching youth about the Victor vs. Victim mentality and overcoming hardships to accomplish your goals.

Next up we took a van load of wrestlers to Farmington, Utah to compete in a Regional event called Western States Pre-Season Championships. This was a great experience for our wrestlers as we had 13 who were able to compete. We got lucky and snagged an off-peak season screaming deal on a 5,000 sq ft Airbnb with a game room in the basement that housed our entire group. We had fun playing pool, shuffleboard, basketball and many other activities that were offered while staying at the home. This was a regional tournament with wrestlers from the surrounding Western States. We were able to come home with 7 wrestlers placing in the top 6.

The very next week I flew to Iowa with four of our wrestlers to compete in the 2021 USAW Brian Keck Memorial Preseason Nationals held in Des Moines, Iowa. This is one of the tougher pre-season tournaments in the country, as it is a National tournament and attracts the most dedicated wrestlers in the country. Many of the athletes competing in this tournament aspire to compete at the next level to wrestle in College. Unfortunately, we did not come home with any hardware but they learned a lot and we had some great experiences, as we were able to go into Grandview University's wrestling room to workout and watch one of their college practices. Grandview University is one the top NAIA programs in the country and have won 9 out of the last 10 NAIA National Championships (2012-2020). They're a very prestigious program and well respected in the College wrestling world. On a side note, I did come home with my all-time highest bowling score. As you can see from the scorecard below, the competition wasn't very steep.

Jerome Middle School Season

Jerome Middle School season started the last week of October. Middle School wrestling consists of 6th-8th grade and we had a turnout of 41 wrestlers this year. This was Kohl Tolbert's first year at the helm of the Middle School program and he did an outstanding job. We had lots of fun getting to know the kids, spending time with them in the room and pushing them to do hard things. Our daily mantra this year was "Be okay with doing hard things." We did not have the most talented group in the valley, but I feel we did have the hardest working group of kids. We spent a lot of time pushing the kids and helping them see the importance of being okay with doing hard things in life. Everyday they came into the room it was a battle and a struggle. It was a great experience seeing the light of understanding appear in kids throughout the season as they started to embrace the challenges and looked forward to the hard workouts in the room.

Jerome ended up 3rd at the District tournament and 6th overall at the Idaho Middle School State Tournament. The Middle School State tournament is the toughest tournament in the State of Idaho for that age group and considered one of the toughest tournaments overall, of all age groups, in the State of Idaho because there are no school divisions or classifications. All schools are lumped into one big State tournament. So if you place or win, you truly are the best kid in the State. A total of 90 Middle Schools from around the State competed at the tournament. We came away with five total placers and Two State Champions. Our two State Champions were Jovah Olivas and Maxton Hudson. Two kids that have a bright future in the sport of wrestling!

Jerome High School Season

High School season started in Mid-November. The first week of practice we had well over 50 kids in the room. Which was to be expected coming off of a Team State Championship run in 2021. The High School team has competed in three tournaments and two home dual meets so far this season. We've crossed paths with our two rivals (Minico & Nampa) a few times this year and it appears this year's State Tournament will be just as exciting as last years. We'll need to battle it out again for the top position. Last year's (2021) State results were 1st - Jerome, 2nd - Nampa, 3rd - Minico. The 2022 Idaho State Tournament could yield similar results. Our next home dual meet will be Wednesday, January, 19th against Bonneville. Mark your calendar, as this is Senior night and our last home dual meet of the season!

On December 20th, we took the team to Orem, Utah to watch UVU dual Oklahoma State. What a great opportunity this was for our wrestlers to have this experience! It made for a long travel day, but not everyday you get an opportunity to watch a team like Oklahoma State compete in a wrestling match. Oklahoma State holds the NCAA record for most team National Championships (34). They are considered a very prestigious program that produces NCAA National Champions, World Team Members and Olympians on a consistent basis.

TW Youth Wrestling Season

Our youth wrestling season (K-8th Grade) just kicked off this week. These practices are separated into two different age groups (K-3rd Grade) and (4th-8th Grade). We've had a great turnout so far with a lot of new faces. So far we've had nearly 80 kids attend practice. I'm hoping for upwards of 90 kids to be registered this season by the end of the month!

We Bought A Bus!

Or I should say. Our amazing boosters and donors helped TW Wrestling acquire a 24 passenger bus, so we can travel with more kids to tournaments. This will create more opportunities for the Jerome Youth in the sport of wrestling. A BIG thank you to Mike Arrington at Starr Corp., for arranging the purchase and for Don Scarrow and Andy Lott for helping out as well. There are so many of you who've made this possible. We are extremely grateful for all of you boosters, as all of you have contributed in many ways to keep these wrestling programs moving forward, successful and now fulfilling our vision of having a club bus to travel with more kids!

Upcoming Events

Wednesday, January 19th: Jerome High School's last home dual meet against Bonneville. This is Senior night, please come out and support the team. All boosters and their families get into the dual meet for free!

Friday, January 21st: 2nd Annual Jerome Wrestling Polar Plunge. This is our Jerome High School Wrestling fundraiser event. The goal for the wrestlers is to get four pledges from family and friends to donate to the Jerome High School program if they jump into Dierkes lake with the team on January 21st. This is an awesome event! We had a lot of fun last year and had a great turnout to watch the event. Currently looking out my window and it appears this year it will be a legit polar plunge. We might need to cut a hole in the ice, making it the ultimate polar plunge experience. We encourage all of our boosters to attend this event and come watch the icy action happen. These kids will need some encouragement to brave the cold weather and jump into the lake. We'll keep you posted on the exact time of the event. A few photos from last year's event are below!

February 18-19th: High School District Tournament @ Wood River High School (location could change)

February 25-26: High School State Tournament - @ Holt Arena in Pocatello

In closing, I want to personally thank all of you for your contributions and donations to our wrestling programs. None of this would be possible without your help. This truly creates many opportunities for the youth in Jerome and the Magic Valley to compete and wrestle throughout the year. It opens doors for them and changes lives. We are a wrestling family and we want to thank you for being a part of the family!

We believe in our youth

We believe in our communities

We believe through the sport of wrestling we can build strong youth and communities

Thank you!

Coach Seth Wright