BY CHARLIE BERGMANN: Staff Writer
Members of the Union Pines wrestling team that attended last week’s team camp at Bloomsburg University in central Pennsylvania learned moves and techniques that will help them individually during the coming season.
But the second annual summer trek for coach Matt Ragsdale’s squad is just as much about team building. Again this year, the five days of hard work that included about 20 matches for each wrestler was capped by a day of whitewater rafting.
“They’re all doing something at the same time that’s risky and they’re depending on each other,” Ragsdale says of this year’s rafting trip on the New River near Beckley, W. Va. “They’re doing something more exhilarating than they’ve ever done before and it makes them closer.”
Last summer, the team attended a camp at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and also hit the rapids at the end of the week. Next summer, Ragsdale plans to take his team west for another experience of grappling and rafting. He also sees the activity as a reward for his wrestlers’ hard work throughout the year.
The coach and 15 wrestlers, joined by chaperones Roger Coble and Conrad Fernandez, took the 13-hour bus ride to Bloomsburg for a camp that included 12 teams from Pennsylvania, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and New York. Ragsdale knows Assistant Camp Director Larry Sprecher, who once coached wrestling at Laney High School in Wilmington.
Each of the rigorous days began with breakfast from 6 a.m. until 7 a.m. An 8:30 a.m. clinic was followed by as many as two matches in the morning, afternoon and evening, the last at 9:30 p.m.
The Vikings wrestlers finished fifth in a tournament held the last two days, with Mike Gigas, Jacob Brown and Dan King finishing first in their weight classes. David Boyle was second in spite of suffering an injury. All four earned All-Tri-County Conference honors last season, and Gigas was third in the state 3-A championships at 119 pounds.
Rising senior Josh Fernandez, a 24-bout winner last season, made the trip with his father, Conrad, and brothers Tony, a rising sophomore, and C.J., who will be a seventh grader at New Century.
The younger Fernandez won five of six matches to win the 80-pound division. The future Viking is motivated by observing his brothers’ enjoyment of the sport.
“Watching them get better makes me want to learn,” he says. “Seeing their medals and hearing about their wins makes me happy to be their brother.”
Josh Fernandez sees a distinctive difference in the styles and moves of wrestlers from other states. Pennsylvania is considered a hot bed of high school wrestling. On top of competing in a tough 3-A conference and region the last two years, he thinks the last week’s exposure is one more thing that will help the Vikings when they begin competing in the new Cape Fear Valley Conference in December.
“Now we know more moves,” he says, “and we’ll be able to show wrestlers from schools in North Carolina moves that they haven’t seen before.”
About halfway through the week, a group of high school girls showed up at the college for a soccer camp. The arrival was not lost on the Viking wrestlers.
“Instead of going right from the workouts to the cafeteria,” Ragsdale said, “they started changing their clothes, showering and putting on some cologne. Some kids just don’t realize what they miss out on by not participating in sports.”
But for the Viking coach and his wrestlers, what will go on in the school’s wrestling room between now and the first match of the 2005-2006 season is not about fun.
“The wrestling room is not an enjoyable place to be,” Ragsdale says. “But when we get back there, we’re going to be a little tighter ” especially the new kids that haven’t wrestled before. They’ll be more accepted.”
When the sparring and challenge bouts between teammates get hot and heavy, it doesn’t hurt to have some experiences from outside the room to draw upon and help make them all feel a part of a whole. It’s important from a team standpoint that the more experienced wrestlers help the less experienced ones become better ” more confident.
“Wrestling is an individual sport,” Josh Fernandez says. “The rafting is a good team experience because when you’re on the raft, you all have to row at the same time and keep pace with each other. It helps us work as a team ” helps us develop a team attitude.”
Just as in their main sport, rafting has its ups and downs. All of them took a turn at getting flipped into the water.
“When I fell out,” C.J. Fernandez said, “it was scary. But when it was over, it was fun.”
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