ROCKINGHAM – It’s been a long time coming, but Richmond County Schools will finally field its first middle school wrestling team this winter.
Thanks to the efforts of Richmond Senior High School head wrestling coach Earl Nicholson, and middle school athletic directors Allen Adeimy (Ellerbe) and Amanda Gainey (Rockingham), the four area middle schools will combine to form a singular Richmond County team in 2018.
Approved by Richmond County Schools’ central office in October, the journey to bring Richmond County a middle school wrestling program has been a longstanding one for Nicholson. He’s been involved with wrestling in the county since 1986, “as a wrestler, a fan and a coach,” and in the 20 years he’s been trying to bring this project to light, it has passed through four RCS superintendents before getting the green light.
In September at the Southeastern Middle School Athletic Conference’s annual athletic directors meeting, Adeimy, Gainey and Nicholson were urged by Hoke County’s athletic director, Gary Brigman, to try and field a middle school program. According to Nicholson, between 2013 and 2018, neighboring counties such as Anson, Hoke, Moore and Scotland had established or continued to grow their youth wrestling programs.
The next step for the trio was to pitch the idea to Dennis Quick, RCS’ executive director of auxiliary services. A few days after discussing the benefits, logistics and finances of a middle school wrestling program with Quick, word was given that the plan had been approved.
“I truly believe this had a big impact on Richmond County taking a realistic look at starting a program,” Nicholson said of the nearby school districts already having programs in place. “I would like to give Allen Adeimy and the other middle school ADs a big ‘thank you’ for helping make this a reality.”
Adeimy also knows that the learning curve looms large, but is excited to see what the first season looks like.
“I hope to see this sport takeoff in the middle schools,” Adeimy said. “Our district is behind on this, so we want to even the playing field by providing Richmond with a proper and quality feeder program.
“We hope to gauge enough interest to eventually have more than one team, perhaps two next year,” he added. “We could combine Rockingham and Ellerbe, and join Hamlet and Cordova to have more kids wrestling in actual matches. This is a fantastic opportunity for our students and we hope to grow it.”
Nicholson and Adeimy both explained that closing the gap in wrestlers’ experience is one of the major benefits to starting a program for local sixth through eighth graders. Nicholson recalled when he wrestled for Richmond that he would compete against guys who had four years of experience to his couple of months’ worth. The same has been true from the coaching perspective, and it’s also a hope to springboard local students into a position to receive collegiate wrestling scholarships.
“As a coach, it usually took my guys three to four years before they could even become somewhat competitive with Cumberland County and Moore County wrestlers,” he said. “Over the past 15 years, I’ve ran Raider AAU wrestling clubs and taken kids to as many camps as I could to close the gap.
“The gap has closed some, but I wasn’t getting the results that I wanted — and that was for more kids from Richmond County to be in a position to earn wrestling scholarships,” he continued. “There are more than 10 schools in the state that offer wrestling scholarships, and seven of them are Division I.”
It has been decided that Richmond County Ninth Grade Academy will be the team’s practice site, and Richmond’s team will host two matches this season (Dec. 5 and Jan. 23). Adeimy, who coaches football and baseball at Ellerbe, has been working on collecting participant data, including school, grade, weight and size. He is also in charge of booking officials, organizing busing and ordering all supplies for the team.
RCS allotted two coaching supplements to help lead the team, and Andre Ellerbe and Richard Kerekes have been tasked as the two head coaches. Nicholson and Adeimy agreed that both were “experienced” and “perfect fits” as Ellerbe, an exceptional children teacher at East Rockingham Elementary School, wrestled at Scotland High School before wrestling for four years at St. Andrews University. He has also been a volunteer assistant with the Richmond team over the past three seasons.
Joining Ellerbe will be Kerekes, a physical education teacher at Cordova Middle School. Kerekes wrestled for Maiden High School in Catawba County, and he placed third in the North Carolina Individual State Tournament during his junior and senior years of high school. Collegiately, Kerekes wrestled at UNC-Pembroke.
Ellerbe and Kerekes held tryouts at NGA on Thursday, and saw 39 students from Cordova, Ellerbe, Hamlet and Rockingham middle schools participate. There were 19 eighth graders, nine seventh graders and 11 sixth graders. The current format for the season is for one team to host a tri-meet, where two other teams travel to a school, allowing each team to compete against the other two.
Currently, Hoke County has three teams, Moore County has two teams, and Scotland and Anson counties each have one team. As explained by Nicholson, there are 18 weight classes starting at 76 pounds going up to 275 pounds. The weight classes are spaced out every five to 10 pounds, with the space between weight classes increasing as the athletes get heavier.
“The obvious benefit of a middle school program will be getting kids to have a foundation in wrestling,” Nicholson said. “Just to put it in perspective, think if our kids never played rec or middle school football — how tough of a job would it be for our football coaches at Richmond if they had to teach them the rules, teach them how to run a football, how to catch a football or how to get in a stance.
“Starting from scratch is what I have to do with wrestlers starting in high school,” he continued. “With this middle school program, I will get kids (at the high school level) who have an understanding of the basics of the sport. Then I can teach tactics, moves, and strategies that will have them competing at a high level before their junior or senior years.”
With the addition of the program, Adeimy and Nicholson agreed that it gives another 40 or so Richmond County athletes a chance to be involved in an extracurricular activity during the winter sports season. It’s also a hope to give the involved student-athletes another reason to enjoy school, lessen discipline issues and encourage better grades.
“When the day comes for our middle school team to compete in its first real match, it will be a really emotional day for me,” Nicholson concluded.
