Richard Eckley is from Iowa, where babies are put into singlets and wear headgear, some as early as their first birthday portraits.
It’s almost as similar as the Rio Grande Valley’s relationship with soccer. It starts at an early age.
That’s not exactly the case with wrestling in the Valley. It’s still a starter sport, for the most part. That’s what makes the 145-pound weight class so impressive. As of two weeks ago, there were several wrestlers who make 145 a special weight class in South Texas. On paper, it looks as if that weight class could send more wrestlers to state than any other.
Eckley, in his fifth year coaching the Sharyland Pioneer boys and girls wrestling programs, said he hasn’t seen a weight class with so much talent. In fact, he said, there’s going to be one extremely talented District 15-6A wrestler who won’t make it out of his own district.
Of course, that will be determined on the mat as the District 15-6A tournament takes place today, with weigh-ins starting at 7:30 a.m. and the competition following, approximately between 8:30 a.m. and 9 a.m. at La Joya High.
Schools in that district include Edinburg Economedes, Edinburg High, Edinburg North, Edinburg Vela, La Joya High, La Joya Juarez-Lincoln, McAllen High, McAllen Rowe, McAllen Memorial, and Mission High.
While wrestling isn’t one of the most popular sports, Eckley said he’s noticed plenty of the wrestlers have the same mentality as those who come from great wrestling states, like Arizona, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
“These kids have the mentality that they don’t care so much about winning and losing, but improving and being the best they can be. They’d rather lose hard than win easy,” Eckley said. “That’s the way the good wrestlers are — they don’t mind losing, they don’t like it but they can learn from it and then they usually want to wrestle that kid again.
“Good kids never want to show up to a tournament and have three easy wins and get a gold medal.”
McAllen Rowe coach Jeff Moubray said that the competition in today’s district meet is going to be very similar to what regionals will bring. Two of the wrestlers competing today in the 145 class are ranked sixth and seventh in the state, according to WrestlingTexas.com, in McAllen Rowe’s Ozzy Trevino and Petey Lozano, respectively. There’s only one other competitor in the region ranked in the state, and he’s from San Antonio.
“This is a good weight class to have some kids from down here advance to state,” said Moubray, in his first year at the held at McAllen Rowe, after spending three years in Edinburg and eight in Mission. “We’ve talked about it all season, and very few of these kids at that weight class here have competed against one another.”
Both Trevino and Lozano said they hope to meet for the first time on the mat at districts. If they do, it means they would have already punched their ticket to regionals and will be competing for the district championship at that weight class.
District 16-6A — featuring Donna North, Los Fresnos, PSJA High, PSJA North, San Benito, Weslaco High and Weslaco East — will take place Friday morning at PSJA High. Shawn De La Rosa of Weslaco East is among the top wrestlers in 145 that has garnered some attention.
District 16-5A will be a two-day event Wednesday and Thursday at Sharyland High. The reason for the two days is because the district has 14 schools including Alamo Vanguard Academy Mozart, Donna High, Edcouch-Elsa, Grulla, La Joya Palmview, Mission Veterans, Pharr Vanguard Academy Rembrandt, PSJA Memorial, PSJA Southwest, Rio Grande City, Roma, Sharyland High, Sharyland Pioneer and Valley View.
“Our kids want to be good so bad, you can feel the desire to get over that hump. There aren’t many state placers from the Valley,” Eckley said. “We are inching closer and closer, though, and there’s a lot of pent-up energy. They’re not content at just being the best in the Valley, like some other sports and teams are. They want compete and be successful at the state and national level. They want to compete with the kids upstate and measure up with the most talented kids.”
Between his boys and girls teams, Eckley took nine wrestlers to the state meet last year. He described that as an “alpha barrier” for the Valley.
“It took thousands of years for us to fly, then 55 years we’re sending rockets to the moon,” he said. “We need to get to the core group of parents and people who love the sport at the youth level in a positive way. That’s what we are missing down here — the infrastructure. We have the kids and these kids are already setting a high standard for future years now. We just need those moms and dads that wrestled and get club groups going. Once that happens, we will have broken that alpha barrier and it will take off.”