The status of youth wrestling in the Texas Panhandle has been confirmed in the last two days, even if that wasn’t the initial intention.
On Monday evening, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes brought in Olympic gold medal wrestler Jordan Burroughs to give the keynote address at their victory banquet at the Amarillo Civic Center. Burroughs came to town mainly due to his connection to fellow gold medalist Brandon Slay, an Amarillo native and Tascosa High graduate.
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However, over 24 hours earlier at the Randall High Gym, Slay and Burroughs appeared before over 400 youth wrestlers to conduct a clinic which hadn’t been originally scheduled. Slay thought it was only natural for Burroughs to share some wrestling knowledge with current and aspiring local competitors.
“What we really came in focused on was the FCA banquet,” Slay said. “They asked me do you think you could get Jordan Burroughs as the keynote speaker at the Victory Banquet. We’ve had Tim Tebow, Major Applewhite and all these people. I asked (Burroughs) and he said yes. I thought that I can’t bring Jordan Burroughs to Amarillo, Texas and not do something with wrestling for the kids.”
Word got out and Burroughs got Randall wrestling coach David Quirino to quickly secure the gym for Sunday afternoon and let area wrestlers know that two of the most accomplished competitors in the recent history of American wrestling were going to be holding a clinic for nearly three hours. Slay was expecting a good crowd, but not what actually attended.
“I was thinking if we had 150 kids show up that would be amazing,” Slay said. “To have 450 registered, although they didn’t all show up, I would say humbly that this is the biggest wrestling clinic in Texas history. I’ve never seen a wrestling clinic this large, and I’ve been around for a while.”
Slay and Burroughs would seem like naturals to host clinics together. They both live in the Philadelphia area where Slay is the national freestyle resident coach for USA Wrestling.
Both also won gold medals for the US in the Olympics, with Slay winning at 168 pounds in 2000 and Burroughs winning at 163 pounds in 2012.
“We love wrestling, that’s what we do,” said Burroughs, who is a six-time world champion and still competes at the age of 36. “I wrestle every day. If I’m not wrestling or coaching myself, I’m still promoting it or talking about it. It doesn’t matter if I’m in New Jersey or Texas.”
This past weekend, though, was the first time Burroughs had been to the Panhandle. He brought his 10-year-old son Beacon to help assist him in teaching drills to wrestlers from third through eighth grades.
“I bring him everywhere and it kind of became his thing,” Burroughs said. “He sees that people admire me and he fell in love with it.”
Both Slay and Burroughs don’t conduct clinics as much these days because they have nine children between them, so these are opportunities to make connections with other kids.
Slay, who was a three-time state champion at Tascosa before graduating in 1993, has generally tried to hold one clinic a year in his hometown. This last weekend was especially rewarding for him.
“Coming home for me this weekend was really important for me and I hoped Amarillo and the Panhandle would show up for (Burroughs) and I’m thankful,” Slay said.
Slay was a freshman at Tascosa when Quirino was a senior there and the two have maintained a friendship ever since. That made going to Quirino to see if a gym would be available for a clinic a natural move.
Quirino was eager to host such a clinic and worked fast to pull things together.
“The head of our FCA Ben Crystal approached Slay and myself and asked about securing facilities to put on a clinic,” Quirino said. “There were lots of emails back and forth about this. It wasn’t just us, it was the whole Panhandle coming together to get this thing put together.”
Slay said that the turnout for the clinic confirmed the importance of the sport in the area.
“I think that wrestling has always been an important sport in Amarillo,” Slay said. “Now that I live in Philadelphia it makes me smile to come back and know it’s still an important sport. Then you see how it’s really growing with the females. To show up for this clinic and see how many girls are here, it’s really special for the sport as well.”
Slay and Burroughs alternated giving instructions to the age groups, divided in groups consisting of third through eighth graders to high school competitors. After those sessions were over, they stopped by to watch athletes between kindergarten and second grade test their skills.
For Burroughs, the sweeping message he wanted the youth to take away was bigger than just wrestling.
“Fall in love with God, fall in love with wrestling,” Burroughs said. “Those are two important institutions that will change your life. If you love this sport you’ll compete at a high level, and if you love Christ and you follow his Biblical principles, you’ll have a good life.”
Slay hoped that at the end of the day the youngsters assembled would take away useful messages on and off the mat.
“Hopefully it inspires some of these wrestlers that they met two Olympic champions today who helped them work on skills,” Slay said. “When you think about it, how many Olympic champions are showing up to the Texas Panhandle to teach anything? I’m thankful that Jordan trusted me to come here and teach.”
Slay didn’t just excel at wrestling while at Tascosa. He was also a two-way all-district player in football in both the offensive and defensive lines.
Quirino thinks that experience for Panhandle athletes comes through on the wrestling mat and explains the big turnout.
“Wrestling’s just tough,” Quirino said. “Down the road you have Lubbock-Cooper who’s the two-time girls defending state champs and we’re the two-time defending boys state champs and prior to that Tascosa was the champ. If you’re going to win the state championship you’re going to have to go through us.”