Little Guy Wrestlers pumped for season with dodge ball tournament

Nick Ianniello

Mineral Independent

The Superior Little Guy Wrestling Tournament got off to a big start last Tuesday with a kick off dodge ball tournament for elementary students interested in the program.

“We want to give them a positive experience and teach them as much as we possibly can at their level so they can experience fun and success,” said Superior Elementary School Principal and Little Guy Bobcats Coach Scott Kinney.

Nearly 30 youngsters turned out for the afternoon program to throw balls and get to know their soon-to-be teammates at the afterschool program.

Coaches Jason Mann, Jason McClees and Kinney officiated for the dodge ball event and helped keep the group entertained from 3:30 until 5 p.m. when their parents arrived to pick up the aspiring grapplers.

This is the first year that Little Guy Wrestling has offered a kick-off event and Kinney and McClees were excited to see just how many children showed up for the event. Last year’s Little Guy Wrestling program had less than 20 children from the elementary school age groups and the turnout for the preliminary event means the team can expect a lot more participation this year.

Last year’s team had around 50 wrestlers total from third through eighth grades. This year for the first time, second graders will be allowed to participate in Superior Little Guy Wrestling.

“Especially this year we’ve got a bunch of these second graders that are eager and chomping at the bit to participate,” said Kinney.

Signups for Little Guy Wrestling have already started, and the team’s first practice will be on Feb. 17, after the end of the high school wrestling season.

Kinney said that little guy wrestling is geared towards teaching youngsters the basics of the sport, and no prior experience is necessary to be a part of the team.

“It doesn’t matter how big you are or how small you are or how big your muscles are. It’s all about how we teach technique and learn the principals of the sport,”

Little Guy Wrestlers practice every day after school from 3:30 until 5 p.m., with elementary school wrestlers practicing at the elementary school and junior high wrestlers practicing in the high school gym.

“We hope that it’s a real positive learning experience so that kids want to come out and wrestle in high school,” Kinney said.

The Little Guy Wrestling program is the brain child of long-time Superior wrestling coaches Bob Kinney (Scott Kinney’s father), Gary Tourtelotte and Clark Conrow.

The three coaches were unhappy with the way the current wrestling program for youngsters was being operated and went out on their own to provide an alternative to the AAU wrestling program.

“They didn’t like the AAU program that existed in the state at that time. They’d wrestle on Sundays and they’d have kids on the mats at midnight. I just remember that it was grueling,” said Scott Kinney, who was part of the original Little Guy Wrestling program.

The AAU program was expensive and hard on wrestlers. Kinney also said that AAU used freestyle wrestling, a style of wrestling that encouraged upright moves and was potentially more dangerous than the folk style wrestling that is used in Little Guy Wrestling and high school wrestling programs.

“The program was written to serve as a feeder program for the high school programs,” Kinney said.

So far it has worked.

The opportunity to get to work with high school coaches and high school wrestlers has drawn in kids to Little Guy Wrestling for more than 30 years now and the program has grown far past Superior and Missoula.

Little Guy Wrestling programs now exist in Wyoming and Idaho, and the Montana program has chapters that extend as far east as Choteau.

“They wanted to get them excited about wrestling and teach them skills that would be applicable to when they moved up to high school,” Kinney said.

Kinney said that since the Little Guy Wrestling name was not trademarked, the Little Guy Wrestling programs in other states are not exactly like the one in Montana, but they were inspired from it.

High school wrestlers are a big part of the Little Guy Wrestling program in that they volunteer to referee at all of the events and are a big inspiration for the young wrestlers in the program.

“It’s a great way for the high school kids to give back to the program that got them started when they were coming up. It’s really cool in that regard,” Kinney said.

Kinney said that wrestling will most likely be free to all wrestlers this year thanks to the large amount of fundraising done for the program. He added that since they have not fully checked their numbers for the season there may be a $10 or less charge, depending on how much money the program has.

Wrestlers who can afford to are encouraged to purchase their own wrestling shoes and headgear, but Kinney said that they have a collection of used equipment that other wrestlers have grown out of for wrestlers that cannot afford their own gear.

“We’ve tried to make wrestling as accessible as possible,” Kinney said.

Superior’s Little Guy Wrestling program has expanded far enough to include, for the first time this summer, a summer wrestling camp.

The free camp provided wrestlers with a week of training, and on the final day of camp, a free trip to Splash Mountain in Missoula.

At the end of camp wrestlers that had put in a lot of effort were also awarded “Hustle Awards” for their efforts.

“We had awesome feedback and we really got to watch the kids do an excellent job,” Kinney said.

For more information on the Little Guy Wrestling Program, or to sign up your child, call Superior School at 822-3600 and speak to Kinney or Charlie Crabb.