MAT MANIA

It’s 9 a.m. on a Saturday in mid-March and the parking lot at University High School is full. Not your typical school-day full, either. Every other vehicle, it seems, is a minivan or SUV.

What brings out so many so early is a local version of March madness – a mat madness that, by definition, starts early.

On this morning it is the third of four consecutive March Saturdays that complete the SJW wrestling season. In 2006 the six-week developmental collegiate-style wrestling program boasts 847 youngsters from kindergarten through sixth grade.

The season finale is today at Central Valley High School, 821 S. Sullivan Road.

Inside the University High gym the stands are filled with family and friends. Although it doesn’t seem possible, they grow fuller as the day moves along.

On the mat is a squad of irrepressible 5- and 6-year olds in wrestling singlets, representing 11 of the 14 Greater Spokane high schools.

The action is a delightful mix of bona fide wrestling moves and youthful exuberance. In one-minute increments, the youngsters prove that any wrestling move can, ultimately, be a pinning move and that any proper wrestling maneuver can be effectively countered if you turn yourself into rubber.

“This year we decided to squeeze in an extra set of mats and run 10 matches at a time,” director Chuck Vaughn said. “We run 10 matches off a common clock, and we’ve managed to get them all in on schedule. Otherwise we’d be here all day trying to get this many matches in.”

Anyone who has ever tried to hug a squirming child has a good idea of how the wrestling action flows, and the mat action is nothing if not entertaining. The kids are loose-jointed in the way that only a youngster can be and supportive in ways that are distinctly kid-only.

For example, when one youngster is in tears after losing a one-minute match, his teammate drapes an arm around his shoulder and comforts him until it’s time to wrestle again. Another is concerned that the takedown move his opponent has attempted is not applied properly, so he adjusts his body to be more accommodating.

Only here can you see unflappable Geoff Hensley, who coaches both the West Valley High School Eagles and the West Valley SJW Wrestling team, engage in a discussion with a parent while one of his wrestlers tries vainly to grapevine the coach’s legs.

During the 5-/6-year-old matches, you could look at one end of the floor and see kids shooting takedown moves that would make a high-school grappler proud, while at the other end a youngster happily applauded his opponent while the referee checked for a possible pin.

What’s surprising is how much wrestling knowledge the kids learn from the cadre of high school coaches, assistants and volunteers. Over six weeks, the kids practice twice a week and wrestle three matches at each of four Saturday tournaments.

The youngsters are divided by age – 5-6, 7-8, 9-10 and 11-12 – and matches are made based on weight, experience and win-loss record, with everything logged into a computer to make match-making easier.

“The thing is, we want to make sure the kids stay interested,” Vaughn said. “We try to make sure the matches are competitive for everyone, so we make matches based on both experience and win-loss record. We have kids who are 6-0 after their first two tournaments, so we make sure they wrestle other kids who are 6-0. Conversely, we have kids who come in here 0-6 and we don’t want them to get discouraged, so we group them together.

“Everybody here leaves with a medal. We give out a gold, a silver and two bronze medals. Every once in a while we’ll have a parent who isn’t happy with the way their kid is scored and will complain. If it makes them happy, we give out an extra gold medal – whatever it takes.”

Putting together a tournament for almost 850 wrestlers is no small feat, and some 75 lovers of the sport volunteer to help make things run smoothly.

“We have high school wrestlers come out and be the referees and scorekeepers and we encourage them to teach and work with the kids as much as they can,” Vaughn said. “We pay the high school kids, but they’re the only ones who get paid for their time. Everything else is done by volunteers.”

In its first incarnation, Spokane Junior Wrestling was a for-profit corporate entity. When the founders lost interest, Vaughn and a group of volunteers took over and turned the effort nonprofit. For legal reasons they must use the SJW Wrestling moniker.

Registration begins the week of Martin Luther King Day in February, and information is available on the group’s Web site: http://home.earthlink.net/~sjwwrestling/index.html.

“This started with the four Spokane Valley schools and Mead,” Vaughn explained. “Now we’re in every Spokane area high school except Shadle Park. For some reason, we haven’t been able to get one in there – and we’ve tried.

“And if you look closely, you’ll see that we have high school coaches out here working with the kids. We have high school assistant coaches, and we have volunteers who just want to give something back to the sport.”

That, Vaughn said, is the key to the volunteer effort.

“Wrestling gets in your blood,” he said. “You don’t do something like this if you don’t love the sport.”