Club Wrestling Team Working Hard to Prepare for Upcoming Season

By Joe Brown
Sports EditorIt all started in the fall of 2005. A team that consisted of only three members has turned into a more serious, 20-person organization with goals of sending wrestlers to nationals in Lakeland, Fl.

"We've got a whole lot of talent in the room from just about every corner of Virginia" said Wrestling Club President junior Alex Vergara. The Lancers will travel along the east coast to compete in invitationals and also host home matches in Iler Gym.

Longwood had a Division II wrestling team since 1976, but the sport was cut on Nov. 3, 2000, when Don Lemish, former director of athletics, announced that Longwood College would discontinue intercollegiate wrestling.

"We do not see appropriate competition in the sport of wrestling relative to the institutions and possible conference affiliations we have targeted in our athletic future," said Lemish. A writer from Petersburg, Va. was told by Lemish that "Longwood's wrestling team has not had a national qualifier since 1995." However, none of the other men's sports teams at the university had qualified either.

Wrestling vanished from Longwood for five years until Shawn Nelson, Keith Huskey and Glen Warrington decided to try to make a club team. Nelson and Huskey had to write a constitution, which was then approved after two revisions. "Shelton Daniels [class of 2007] helped out by coaching, and Glen took care of the paperwork and scheduling our first competitive season in 2006-2007," Vergara said.

Two years later, the Lancers have a team consisting of about 15 members who practice 16 hours per week to be at the top of their game. The final competition roster will be announced on October 1 after incoming freshman have been selected.

"In season varies for each of us," said Vergara, a Greco-Roman state qualifier in high school. "In the summer, only a few of us get involved with other variations of wrestling such as freestyle and Greco-Roman, and we compete at our natural weight. While were in school, we train for folk-style and start cutting weight."

The Lancers practice in the basement of Tabb four days per week, two hours per day.

"Its been a great place to practice for the past two years," said Vergara, "but we're getting to the point where we need more room so we don't get thrown into each other or break the walls." The team is being relocated to another spot that has yet to be determined due to the school's reconstruction plans.

The team has excruciating practices that push them to get better each and every day. The mats are cleaned by Team Manager Lauren Haynie to ensure a disease-free practice. The team runs for 10 minutes to get warmed up before they stretch, followed by a fifteen minute conditioning period. A drilling period is next for about 30 minutes, trailed by another 15-minute conditioning workout.

"Then we go into 'live' wrestling, which is when we pair up with a person from around the same weight and essentially go all-out and wrestle as we would our opponent," said Vergara. After "live" wrestling, there is a third conditioning session comprised of calisthenics, push-ups, sit-ups, sprints, high-knees and mountain climbers. "We strive to push ourselves to the absolute point of physical exhaustion," said Vergara.

Perhaps the team's motivation is from an incident that occurred last year. The team qualified five wrestlers for the National Collegiate Wrestling Association national tournament, but they couldn't go because of finance issues. Each club team is given $5,000 per year for expenses such as transportation, lodging and equipment. The national tournament was in March, but the team had used all of its money four months prior. Longwood told the qualifiers if they wanted to attend that they would have to pay everything with their own money and the SGA might reimburse them.

"It was the worst news we could have heard. We are all college guys [who] can't work that much because of our sport and school, so that was pretty much out of the question. We have fundraisers set up with Kings Dominion this year that will raise our club $9,000 or more so that the same incident won't occur," said Vergara.

To help the organization, Matt McGregor, director of campus recreation, is the team's adviser, helping with the program's logistics. Also, Marty Gibson, a Longwood staff member, helps coach the team. Gibson was here when the team was a Division II sport. "He comes to as many practices as he can and gives us moral support. He's kind of our mentor and helps us on and off the mat," Vergara said of Gibson.

The team's first event is at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County on November 15. They will compete in a team round robin, where the two teams with the best records will face each other for the title. The Lancers' opening home match is set for January 31 in Iler Gym, when they take on the Dukes of James Madison University.

The team is working hard for a successful season and looks forward to their upcoming schedule. "We want to continue with our success off of last year's run," said Vergara. "Our goals are to raise enough funds to send our athletes to nationals, get ahold of our competition mats, establish ourselves as a prominent program throughout the state of Virginia, and gain the support of the entire school when we finally do host our home events. We also want an awesome turnout at the home matches."

The wrestling team has their own Web site at www.longwoodwrestling.com where their season schedule is posted.

The team will continue to strive for excellence and practice for their upcoming competition. Vergara summed up the team by saying, "We're a bunch of crazy guys who are motivated solely by love of the sport.