Savanna Byles, Seth Clarin

Becoming an athlete takes persistence, dedication and practice, involving long practice hours, and for high school athletes, balancing school and sports responsibilities. For the varsity wrestling team, these fundamentals are no different. Students interested in Miami Palmetto High’s wrestling team have started this process since the summer, and are now ready to take on the hot and sweaty bootcamp Head Coach Anthony Fadelle holds every year.

Day 1:

“Unlike most sports, getting on the team is more of a survival-of-the-fittest boot camp style rather than a tryout-based process. Students participate in a three-day procedure, however, most drop out after just day two due to the strict conditioning,” junior, wrestler team manager and photographer Sofia Alexander said.

On day one, students learned basics and endurance work such as the wrestling stance, how to take a shot and the referee’s position. 

“I had a lot of fun trying out as it was a new experience. I’ve always heard from friends that wrestling is different from any other shape, but I’ve never really felt it until the first day where we trained hard,” junior Ryan Rizo said.

Day 2:

The second day consisted of putting together sequences and combinations now that the fundamentals were down-packed.

“There was a lot of conditioning and drilling going on. Most of the time, people want to come out for wrestling because they think it’s easy but then they realize how hard it is so lots of students dropped out this day because they saw it was not the best fit for them,” Fadelle said.

Day 3:

On day three, attendance was lower as students realized that becoming a wrestler is harder than it may seem, but the kids who stayed were pumped up and felt proud of themselves that they made it this far.

“The coaches picked the varsity lineup and added the rest of the kids on the [junior varsity team. Because we had a couple of kids who left, no one was cut from the team,” Alexander said.

The wrestling team is very excited to continue making MPSH proud and hopes to bring home victories.

“We should have a really good year. We have five or six guys who are ranked top 10 in the state, so we hope they help us achieve our first state championship this year,” Fadelle said.

Wrestling helps athletes develop endurance, shape and speed. Students interested in starting the process of joining should consider partaking in the off-season program next year.

“If I had to give advice for kids next year, I would say start now and get your endurance up, get in shape and the conditioning is hard, so I really advise starting early. Also, keep your grades up and fix any Fs as it is important to maintain a good GPA to join the team,” Alexander said.