A sweaty summer clinic drew the likes of wrestling’s top brass to Gotham. There, diehard urban kids learned insider tips and tutelage on how to tango like the best of them. Two-time World Champion and Olympic Medalist and U.S. team coach Terry Brands liked what he saw since frequenting the city in year’s past to instruct the next generation of gladiators. “It was a good thing to see scrambles—some things that you don’t see in everyday across America. It’s good to see that in New York after being here for several years.”
Wrestling and its cauliflower ear hallmarks have indelibly stormed into town with a roar. And leading the charge is a not-for-profit organization known as Beat The Streets. After six years, exponential participation and the honing of raw talent by bringing in the best brains and organizers from all over the world, New York City is now weighing-in as a pound-for-pound force on wrestling’s stage.
Conventionally the sport (longdominated by Russians) has cultivated its legion of warriors in the cornfields and haystacks of rural America. But now that the top-tier masters are bringing the wisdom and heart to the city’s mats convincing the many prognosticators out there to believe a state—even a world champion—could be born from one of the urban jungle’s five boroughs.
Built from a collective vision to get local kids a shot at greatness in a sport that is all too overlooked and overshadowed by mainstream coverage granted to basketball and football programs, the rise in wrestling’s respect can no longer be downplayed.
“Once you get the DNA of wrestling into schools, into the kids, magic happens,” says Mike Novogratz, a finance guru and wrestling ambassador who frontlined Beat The Streets’ charter. He explains that the organization’s mantra is to build great citizenry in what he pegs as a “little revolution.”
“You create leaders, you create toughness—disciplined kids—and you save lives. Not only do I want a bunch of state champions I want to have a bunch of kids that leap from front foot, that aren’t scared, that do the right thing when confronted with challenges.”
Local rising star Hector Gonell was able to lock-up with Coach Terry Brands at one of the clinics and admitted that he could learn “a lot of moves” on and off the mat from a grappling giant like Coach Brands.
“Mentally, I can learn how to be a better person,” he said. He admitted that pre-wrestling he was lost. “I used to be on the streets all the time—not doing really good in school,” Gonell says. “Now you see me wrestling and I get As and Bs, nothing else.” He said his family’s become big-time fans. “My mother likes me doing wrestling because I got my head straight.”
City officials are also banking on the program’s success.
Beat The Streets board member Eric Goldstein, who is Chief Executive of School Support Services for the Department of Education is a true convert and wants New York City to not only dominate the state but the country and every other country after that.
“The goal of the city was to become the wrestling capital of the world.”
He adds that gone are the days when everybody considered the city a pushover.
“It used to be that people loved to come up against us. They believed it would be an easy win. And now people are dreading it.
“We’re trying to be the best in the country,” he explains. “I would say we made a lot of progress. There’s a lot of good wrestling programs out there but I would tell the other wrestlers out there to watch out.”
Still, it’s not all sweat and sacrifice on the part of the kids that will win world domination. Much in the way of tradition and time are factors in the grand scheme.
“Building culture doesn’t happen overnight,” claims Novogratz. “You start really with a tabula rasa in that we really don’t have uncles or brothers, you know, grandparents that have wrestled [citywide]. For most of these kids it’s their first exposure to the sport and so it’s going to take us a while.”
With roughly 62 high schools and 64 middle schools signed-on, the thousands of scrappers are making the bare-fisted martial art perhaps the biggest kept secret in town.
Brian Giffin, a steward who has been a central player in the program’s success faithfully instills that what’s won or lost at practices and meets is meant to be carried over into the real world.
He suggests, “The life lessons you get on the mat: the education, the discipline, the direction, the community service that you develop within the sport that enables our kids to get into good colleges and hopefully do better in the academic world.”
Come mid-October Beat The Streets rolls out the mat for a tourney to the finish in it’s youth program, which will conclude at The Mayor’s Cup on January 31 where young boys and girls from fourth grade through high school will scramble and pin to their heart’s content until a champ is crowned.
