MYAA is proud to announce that McDowell youth wrestling has combined with MYAA to create a new youth athletic program that operates in the MYAA family of sports. This is an exciting opportunity for all athletes in our community because we are creating a program that is unrivaled in our region that has combined some of best coaches in this area with one of the best local youth development organizations.

Our philosophy is to teach the kids the skills of wrestling in a structured environment that does not burn out kids from the sport. Many multisport athletes wrestle in the winter and we do not believe in single sport athletes. Our coaches have played collegiate sports, coached youth sports and built teams at very high levels. We are aware of how organized sports can positively influence a person’s life. When wrestling is coached correctly it creates many life skills that can be found in no other sports. It builds confidence on and off the mat because it teaches self discipline, overcoming obstacles, pushing through pain, as well as self defense. These skills carry on throughout an athletes life and help build the future leaders of our community.

In the next week we will be sending out a registration email for the new MYAA Wrestling program. This will be available for both girls and boys (K-6) that want to participate in wrestling. All young athletes are welcome to register to wrestling and we do not cut players at either level.

This program will have two levels to allow first time wrestlers to participate and learn the sport and also continue developing the advanced wrestlers at the next competition level of the sport. Wrestling athletes at both levels can choose to participate in practices only or also attend tournaments. We include two tournaments with our registration but these are optional. Our goal is to have the athletes enjoy the sport and learn life skills. We do not care about chasing trophies. These programs are as follows:

1. MYAA Novice Youth Wrestling is a two year wrestling program created to teach the basic techniques of wrestling and develop athletes while keeping a fun environment as the number one priority. This builds young athletes confidence on and off the mat and skills that translate to other season sports. As the youth advance in age and experience, the coaching staff introduces more techniques while building their work ethic. They attempt to teach the correlation between hard work and success and firmly believe that competition breeds success.

1. Riptide Advanced Youth Wrestling provides a travel program that teaches advanced techniques of wrestling in a more competitive environment. Skill levels are higher in advanced and techniques are more important.

Both programs will work together to create champions in life, not just on the mat. We believe wrestlers should work to obtain the following qualities in this order:

1. Character
2. Intelligence
3. Mental Toughness
4. Endurance
5. Strength/Power
6. Quickness/Explosiveness
7. Agility, Balance and Flexibility
8. Nutrition and Weight Management

We stress the importance of traits such as: sportsmanship, honoring others (parents, coaches, opponents, officials), focusing on performance and execution rather than match score or winning/losing, learning positive thinking, mental visualization of success, goal setting and the realistic tracking of goals, embracing/ignoring pain (both acute and conditioning induced) and focusing on personal victories rather than medals, all of which will translate into lifelong success.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact Program Director Jim Hartken at [email protected]