YMCA goes to the mat
Published 12:00 am Thursday, November 25, 2004
Starting on Nov.29, the Greenville YMCA will hold registration for a youth wrestling team. Registration will run from the 29th through December 12.
The team will hold practices at the new YMCA three to four times a week and practices will run from an hour and a half to two hours each practice.
The fee for registration will be $55 and that will cover the program cost and a membership into USA Youth Wrestling.
Children that participate in the program will not be required to wear singlets or to wear wrestling shoes.
The team is basically going to be a tournament team and will compete against other youth wrestling teams throughout the state.
Tournament entry fees will be $5 a child and will be paid at the tournament site.
The children on the team will not compete against older children but will compete against children in their age division and weight class.
The age divisions are Bantam (for children born in 1997-1998), Midget (for children born in 1995-1996), Novice (for children who were born between 1993-1994) and Schoolboy (children born between 1991-1992)
Within each age division there are different weight classes. All the tournaments are scratch-weight tournaments, meaning that the children will not be given any extra weight.
But there will also be no pressure for the children to make weight either, nor will they be forced to cut any weight. If a child does not make the posted weight, then they will have the option of moving up in class.
The weight classes are as follows.
In the Bantam class, they range from 40lbs to 75 lbs, with 76 and up being the heavyweight in that class.
For those competing in the Midget class, the weights range from 50lbs to 130lbs. 131lbs and up being the heavyweights.
Novice classes range from 60lbs to 165lbs. 166lbs and up are the heavyweights. And in the Schoolboy class, weights range from 70lbs to 170lbs, 171lbs and up is the heavyweight class.
The season will begin in January. The Greenville Tiger wrestling team will have the opportunity to compete throughout the state in different tournaments.
The first tournament will be on Jan. 8 and will be at Clay-Chalkville. On Jan. 15, the Tigers will compete in the Prattville Tournaments. Seven days later, Jan. 22, they will travel to either the Trussville Tournament or the East Walker Tournament.
There are only two scheduled tournaments in the month of February. The first tourney is on Feb. 5 and is the AWC Tournament. The last scheduled tournament of the season is the USA State Wrestling Tournament and will be held at Oak Grove.
If anyone would like any more information about the YMCA wrestling program, please contact Amanda Phillips, executive director of the YMCA, at 382-0550.