Summer Camps

[BigWill]

Have a Grandson 11 yrs old, very good grappler in Conn now at 102, but not even close to having hair anywhere but his head. Now on the Newtown Ct Club team.

Give me some decent camps in the East, this side of the Mississippi, maybe even the Delaware.

Other older high school Grandsons have done Ranger and Seal at West Point and Annapolis.
JROB and Jeff Jordan in Ohio.

This one could be special.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Tango Two]

Have a Grandson 11 yrs old, very good grappler in Conn now at 102, but not even close to having hair anywhere but his head. Now on the Newtown Ct Club team.

Give me some decent camps in the East, this side of the Mississippi, maybe even the Delaware.

Other older high school Grandsons have done Ranger and Seal at West Point and Annapolis.
JROB and Jeff Jordan in Ohio.

This one could be special.

Thanks in advance.

https://www.rutgerswrestlingcamps.com/

 

[WhoRU?]

Will,

Wrestling has become a lot more like basketball, instead of AAU teams, wrestling has clubs. Make sure he's in the right one. The coaches aren't quite the kingmakers that AAU coaches are in basketball, but they know the process. Compete at the state and regional level year round, and the cream rises to the top in Fargo at the junior nationals.

I'm in NY and we aren't nearly as competitive as NJ/PA. Connecticut isn't either. The most competitive kids locally all drive a couple hours multiple nights a week to train -- it shows.

As for your original question, camps aren't what they used to be. Wrestlers used to be able to compete in multiple sports and go to a summer camp to get better. Training is year round now. In the end, we decided against the whole club thing because of the time involved. Back in the day Granby Camp was popular and Lehigh was decent. I don't know how much time Cael spends at the Penn State camp, but it may be worth it for an elite kid. Same thing with Goodale, Pritzlaff and Ashnault at Rutgers.

We did the camp at West Point and I wouldn't recommend it. Past few years, I have driven them out to Gene Mills camp in PA. Many strong high school coaches who know technique with several Olympians there. Most of the kids were from NJ, PA and NY. Old school folks on the board will recognize it as the old Russ Houk's camp.

 

[RU Diesel07110]

For a young kid scorpions was always the best.
More hs kids at apex

 

[koleszar]

Have a Grandson 11 yrs old, very good grappler in Conn now at 102, but not even close to having hair anywhere but his head. Now on the Newtown Ct Club team.

Give me some decent camps in the East, this side of the Mississippi, maybe even the Delaware.

Other older high school Grandsons have done Ranger and Seal at West Point and Annapolis.
JROB and Jeff Jordan in Ohio.

This one could be special.

Thanks in advance.

I remember our summer camp wrestling experiences in grammar school. We'd all pile into our Rec. Coach's Winnebago and head off to some tournament. We had a blast as kids. Of course this was way before there was a single club team probably in the entire nation You could never do that in today's paranoid world.

 

[BigWill]

He went to Gene Mill's a couple of years ago and liked it there.

Mad Dog is all Gung Ho and I'm trying to tell him that this race is going to have the Tortoise Win. Don't blow him out with pressure, before he even has hair on his arm/leg.

Send him to camps where he has fun but learns technique and let him grow and pass these "hammer" kids that have coaches/Dads that are reliving their athletic life thru these kids.

He wrestled 80's last year now in low 100's so he's growing in large percentiles. Who knows where he will wind up In high school.

Plus he's a great student and a math savant.

Jim Pritzlaff was the RG on my Syracuse team.

Am I wrong with this sport's vagarities ?

 

[WhoRU?]

My kids are both 3 sport athletes and are on track to graduate with 12 letters each. They aren't the stars on the team. The best kid on the wrestling team is up over 100 varsity wins as a senior. He was a state place winner last year (NY). He's the NY state champ in greco and he's been to Fargo the last two years. After 8th grade he started 2-3 times a week at a club. He has 1 D2 offer. And it's a partial scholarship. Wrestling isn't a game and there's no going pro.

I was at a tournament this weekend where a kid got his 200th win. This means he was probably wrestling varsity as a 7th grader.

If your grandchild is in 5th grade he's got a couple years before he needs to get real serious about it. If he's going to be an upper weight, he can still play football in the fall, but after the scholastic wrestling season the elite guys keep going with freestyle and greco through clubs.

The truly elite guys compete for state championships as freshmen. Take Ashnault--4 time state champ with 170 wins. He didn't just get serious about wrestling in 8th grade.

 

[BigWill]

He's on the Newtown Club team, which is a good team for Conn.

Well over 200 Wins so far. Just won the Western Conn tourney.

So I'll drive him wherever it takes for overnight camp.

 

[RU Diesel07110]

Scorpions has camps and clinics. Just had a 3 day clinic for mlk day. Remember having kids from conn come there in the past as well as PA and Florida.
Side note, we wrestled the new town team the weekend after the school shooting at Passaic valley tourn. Had a pretty good team but we did spank them lol.
Check scorpions website. They’re in Fairfield nj

 

[ScarletGrapfan]

My opinion on overnight camps........save your money and go to a very good club. Typically overnight weekly camps bring in clinicians(great ones) but they teach a ton of moves in a short week. Too many moves packed into 1 week. I think weekly overnight camps(for a high school team) are good for team bonding(and getting in matches). Camps like J-Rob 28 day intensive camp........you run a bunch of miles every morning.....why would you want to be in peak shape in July?.
As someone mentioned above, if you can get to Scorpions, Apex in North Jersey one, two, three nights per week and some of their weekend sessions....much better than camps.

 

[Leonard23]

He's on the Newtown Club team, which is a good team for Conn.

Well over 200 Wins so far. Just won the Western Conn tourney.

So I'll drive him wherever it takes for overnight camp.

Scorpions has camps and clinics. Just had a 3 day clinic for mlk day. Remember having kids from conn come there in the past as well as PA and Florida.
Side note, we wrestled the new town team the weekend after the school shooting at Passaic valley tourn. Had a pretty good team but we did spank them lol.
Check scorpions website. They’re in Fairfield nj

My opinion on overnight camps........save your money and go to a very good club. Typically overnight weekly camps bring in clinicians(great ones) but they teach a ton of moves in a short week. Too many moves packed into 1 week. I think weekly overnight camps(for a high school team) are good for team bonding(and getting in matches). Camps like J-Rob 28 day intensive camp........you run a bunch of miles every morning.....why would you want to be in peak shape in July?.
As someone mentioned above, if you can get to Scorpions, Apex in North Jersey one, two, three nights per week and some of their weekend sessions....much better than camps.

Really depends what you want out of it. Most of these kids aren't going on to win a HS state title (or even place) or to wrestle in college. 200 wins by 11 yrs old doesn't mean anything. Neither overnight camps nor day/school's out camps at clubs are better than going to a club regularly and doing group and private lessons there, but all are good for different reasons. I'd do them all if you have the money as they're totally different. Overnight camps are great for the bonding and some technique and matches (at all ages not just HS). Kids will remember the bonding and other fun experiences far greater and longer than some technique they learned or some stud the wrestled live or in the camp tourney. If you don't care about the bonding and memories and just want to scrap, then just go to a club.

 

[BigWill]

Grandson # 2 is wrestling at Buffalo as a frosh. #3 in Jun in HS.
# 4 is the one I'm looking at for these camps.

And they went JROB 28, SEALS/Ranger and the older one to Va Tech for their best camps, along with Jeff Jordan in Ohio so I'll drive them wherever.

Newtown is near Hartford so that's why I'm looking overnight/sleep
anywhere East of the Mississippi.

The older 2 did daily/nights at Olympic Wresting in Mahwah.

 

[RU Diesel07110]

Really depends what you want out of it. Most of these kids aren't going on to win a HS state title (or even place) or to wrestle in college. 200 wins by 11 yrs old doesn't mean anything. Neither overnight camps nor day/school's out camps at clubs are better than going to a club regularly and doing group and private lessons there, but all are good for different reasons. I'd do them all if you have the money as they're totally different. Overnight camps are great for the bonding and some technique and matches (at all ages not just HS). Kids will remember the bonding and other fun experiences far greater and longer than some technique they learned or some stud the wrestled live or in the camp tourney. If you don't care about the bonding and memories and just want to scrap, then just go to a club.

Camps/clinics are good but obv only if your going to a club. Club wrestling will give you repetition/muscle memory plus you go live part of each session. Wouldnt make sense to just show up at a camp/clinic w/o club wrestling behind you. A kid doent have to be a state champ or placer to be successful in the sport, but the more they are exposed to good competition the better they will get. Remember theres kids states and qualifiers to where kids can get on the podium too.

 

[BigWill]

Probably Iron Strengthens Iron early, maybe in Wisky in June,

Unknown at this time in July. Still looking around. Maybe Jeff Jordan or Gene Mills depending on dates of each camp.

Ranger/West Point with his Newtown Club team. (Club head coach has a relationship with Army.) in August,

Maybe Tournament of Champions in Columbus to see what is what, development-wise...