North Carolina Rising
In the next decade, North Carolina will be the hottest state in the Southeast and one of the hottest on the country.
No, I haven’t been tracking 4- and 5-year-olds to see who is ready to make their mark … I’ll leave that level of analysis to experts like Willie Saylor at Rokfin and Flowrestling.
Some perspective for anyone who hasn’t been paying close attention to high school wrestling news in the last 12-18 months: Georgia has made a splash nationally with the emergence of Caleb Henson, Matthew Singleton, Chase Horne, and so on. Trackwrestling even wrote about it.
In the post, titled Why is Georgia wrestling on our minds?, Kyle Klingman lays out the metrics to support his assertion. He cites the # of NCAA qualifiers, # of Fargo All Americans, and # of nationally-ranked wrestlers. I agree with him. We have seen tremendous growth in Georgia, particularly with the number of wrestlers competing at the highest-level in the prep ages (say 13-18 year olds).
Klingman credits the level of instruction these wrestlers are receiving at their clubs outside of the high school season, from Cliff Fretwell and his coaches at Compound to one of the most well-known coaches in the southeast, Arturo Holmes. Klingman highlights the impact that these clubs have had over the last decade (and that network of opportunities has only grown with the addition of clubs like Storm, Roundtree, Level Up, and others).
So why won’t Georgia continue to be dominant? Will North Carolina supplant Georgia in the next decade?
Both great questions. Georgia and Florida will continue to produce top-end talent, but the two states lack something that North Carolina has an abundance of … Division I programs and talent. Both Florida and Georgia have been buoyed by the emergence of top training centers that are focused on mixed martial arts and the level of coaching that comes with such places. Many of the top MMA fighters in the world train in South Florida – which can only be an advantage for our sport. Spartan has opened (or will open one within months) an RTC (Regional Training Center) in Orlando and hosted several decorated college wrestlers at Spartan Nationals a few weeks ago (from multiple time NCAA Champ Yianni Diakomihalis to David Carr, Vito, Welker, and others).
But neither state has a Division 1 program and all of the “trappings” that come with such programs. Yianni and others may train occasionally in Orlando, but more than likely will spend the bulk of the training time in New York (or wherever they are still wrestling in college). The emergence of RTC’s has been huge for the continued growth of top-level wrestlers and North Carolina has an embarrassment of riches in this area (especially compared to other SE states). NC State (Wolfpack) and UNC (Tar Heel) each have one, Campbell has one in Buies Creek, Appalachian State has one in Boone, and so on. Each of these programs are on the upswing in terms of success at the NCAA National Championships and athletes continue to get better with opportunities at their RTC’s when they have finished competing in college.
Why will that bring an explosion of talent to North Carolina?
It won’t – necessarily. But it has an opportunity to. These programs have been in existence for a long time (NC State and North Carolina go back to the 1920’s), so the explosion of high school talent isn’t a given. But the melting pot is hot. John Mark Bentley and Scotti Sentes have developed outstanding programs at App State and Campbell, respectively, and Pat Popolizio and Coleman Scott have NC State and North Carolina breaking down the doors of the top 5. The quality being produced in those rooms is something you cannot overlook and the RTC’s are keeping many of those hammers in the state, as opposed to years past when they would graduate and move back to the Northeast or Midwest to train.
Just take a look at the entries from North Carolina in Men’s Freestyle in Vegas next week. North Carolina is 3rd in terms of number of entries with 16 – behind California and Illinois and tied with Pennsylvania. As a comparison, Florida has 8, and Georgia and Tennessee each have 2. If those athletes continue to work and train in North Carolina and we continue to see the growth of clubs like Combat, Darkhorse, etc., in addition to the opportunities presented to top high school athletes by the RTCs, North Carolina has a recipe in place to be the next state everyone is talking about.
Have an opinion? Want to share with everyone on the Southeast? Send an email and we will get it posted.
