Mingus Union High School wrestling may be even stronger in the coming years.
The Mingus Mountain Wrestling Club for Cottonwood’s youth has been in existence for 15 years, but this year it’s different. This year, it’s a full-on season with weekly tournaments and a state championship tournament.
“We are trying to make it like a Little League sport,” said Klint McKean, the new coach of the club. “We’re running it differently than it was ran before. In the previous years, after the high school season there would be a two-week youth camp, and it wasn’t as organized as it is now.”
The Mingus Mountain Wrestling Club teaches Folkstyle, Freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling to students of all skill levels from beginning to advanced. There are 18 boys, from kindergarten to sixth-grade, in the club, and they practice every Tuesday and Thursday for 1½ hours at the Clemenceau building with the junior high team.
“The junior high team didn’t have a coach. Then they found one, but he was a little bit inexperienced,” McKean said. “So I run the practices and he takes them to the meets. I think it works best that way, so I can show him how we ran it before.”
McKean was the MUHS head wrestling coach for the last two years and the junior high coach for five years before that. His two sons are now in the club, and that was his main motivation for stepping down from the high school position and taking on this group.
For the full story, please see the Wednesday, Dec. 12, issue of the Cottonwood Journal-Extra.
