Anderson County hosted elite wrestling camp last week
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Wrestling is the fastest-growing sport among female athletes because of the number of scholarships available. Last week’s Purler Wrestling Camp, held at Fairview Ele- mentary School, saw female athletes of all ages work on their skills. - Ken Leinart
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Wrestlers from throughout the Clinch River Valley took part in the Purler Wrestling Camp hosted by Anderson County High School. - Ken Leinart
Anderson County hosted an elite youth and high school wrestling camp last week with the help of Purler Wrestling Camps, based in Missouri.
The five-day camp, held at Fairview Elementary, was attended by approximately 50 youth and high school wrestlers.
“They have these Purler Camps from Missouri that were started by Nick Purler and they do camps all over the country,” Anderson County Coach Matt Slone said. “We were really impressed with our kids, who came in and worked hard.”
The wrestlers in attendance compete in several programs in East Tennessee. The athletes ranged grade school to high school age.
“We were impressed with our turnout,” Slone said. “We had about 50 kids, and I think the youngest ones were 8 years old, and then we had our high school guys.
“And we didn’t have just A.C. kids. We wanted to open it up for everybody.
“We had kids from Anderson County, Clinton, Gibbs, Halls and Grace (Christian Academy). We opened it to as many wrestlers that wanted to come.”
Each camp session lasted five hours.
The camp taught wrestling fundamentals.
Many youth wrestling programs, including Gibbs and Halls (two of the top programs in Knox County for the past several years), have younger wrestlers, but Slone said that a five-hour day of intense instruction might have been too much for those under 8.
“Our kids did a great job, and the Purler instructor was impressed with the kids for the way they worked and paid attention,” Slone said. “He said our kids did a great job.
“He was impressed with the way the kids listened and worked. We thought the five-hour day might be a little too much for younger kids.”
With the Purler Camp in the rearview mirror, Anderson County will rest this week and take a two-week break during the TSSAA-mandated dead period.
“We’re giving everybody the week off and then we’ll have the dead period, so they’ll be off for the next three weeks,” Slone said.”