After coaching five fighters to gold medals at the Arizona state championships June 27, Brazilian jiu-jitsu trainer Ted Osburn is on the hunt for more state neckwear Saturday, Aug. 29.
Five of Osburn’s white belt fighters, including Mingus Mountain Wrestling Club head coach Klint McKean and several of his wrestlers, will return to Phoenix in search of their second golds in three months at the Arizona NoGi grappling championships.
“They’re still wrestling, but just in a different form,” said McKean, an English teacher and former wrestling coach at Mingus Union High School who first ran clinics with Osburn in the winter of 2011. “So it’s a nice change of pace. This offseason, I decided to put my boys in [jiu-jitsu] and it looked fun, so I did it.”
While McKean won his match on points to get gold in the 30- to 40-year-old age group in Ahwatukee, McKean’s son Isaac, 11, beat both of his opponents at 89 pounds by arm bar submission as well.
“It’s about positioning,” Isaac McKean explained his victories. “Getting people in the back.”
He would watch his little brother, Elias, rebound from a loss by points at 60 pounds to win one match by submission and another 26-0 to take the bronze medal among 8- to 9-year-olds.
“I’m really grateful to have Klint with us, because wrestling’s added a whole new dynamic to the training,” Osburn said. “These guys are so good at the stand-up [and] take-down game. The work ethic among a lot of these wrestlers raised the level for the rest of the kids in class. It makes everybody better.”
Sixth-grader Elijah Miller and fifth-graders Cameron Contreras and Kai Miller are other wrestlers who McKean has sent to train with Osburn when they are taking a break from the sport.
For the full story, please see the Wednesday, Aug. 12, issue of the Cottonwood Journal Extra.
