Ponce Trained Wrestling

Training Schools and Camps Wrestling With COVID-19

By Brian Jerzak

Businesses around the nation have all had to deal with several changes during the last six months. The business of wrestling has had to adjust too. While high school and college programs have had many challenges, so have wrestling training facilities. How are these training facilities dealing with our new reality, and how are they planning for an uncertain future?

I talked with four wrestling training school owners and one wrestling camp director/coach to find out their thoughts on wrestling with COVID-19.

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Ponce Trained – In Wrestling and In Life

Before high school, Orlando Ponce wasn’t going down the best path. When introduced to wrestling, his path started going in a positive direction. After high school, when he thought wrestling was out of his life, Ponce began to go down some troubling roads again. Wrestling would get re-introduced into his life, and he has never looked back.

“My high school coach and the people who influenced me through wrestling,” Ponce said, “if not for them, I would be in a much different situation.”

Now, Ponce has devoted his life to influencing kids through his faith and through wrestling.

Ponce didn’t grow up in a wrestling hotbed.

“I was born in Nicaragua and was raised in South Florida. It was not a big wrestling community. I got a later start in wrestling. My brother started wrestling but dropped out of high school. He encouraged one of my other brothers to wrestle. This brother was a state champion and went on to wrestle for Lock Haven in Pennsylvania. I was a ninth-grader when he was a senior. My brother encouraged me to wrestle.”

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The Guillotine – May 15, 2020

The May 15, 2020 issue of The Guillotine has arrived! Featured content in this issue includes: A Program and Community on the Rise - Stillwater Wrestling | Ponce Trained - In Wrestling and In Life | The Guillotine Academic All-State Wrestlers | Where Have They Gone? - Wayne Lexvold | An Evolving Culture of Wrestling - Kasson-Mantorville.

More content in this issue: Lace ‘Em Up - Academic All-State and Recruiting News | Camps and Training Opportunities | MWCA Report | Ask The Doc - Waiting for the Pandemic to Pass | Officially Speaking - New Rules.

View this issue below.

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