Grappling With a Complex : Oklahoma Camp at Royal Magnifies Remedial Image of California Wrestling

Junior Meek probably said it best by not saying anything. He just laid there, with an arm draped over his forehead, and snored.

Wrestling just isn’t meant to be staged in August, especially in California where the sport is probably more closely associated with mud and oil than with high school athletics.

And at the Oklahoma Sooner Wrestling Camp at Royal High in Simi Valley recently, some wrestlers wearing high-top basketball shoes and tattered tank tops looked more like they were ready to learn the pick-and-roll than the fireman’s carry.

This clearly wasn’t Oklahoma, one of the nation’s wrestling strongholds. This is the sunshine capital, where rolling around on mats in a muggy wrestling room is far down the list of popular activities.

“Out here, that’s the perception, being so close to the beach and all,” Royal wrestling Coach John Reed said. “In the Midwest, the kids wrestle all year long.”

Twenty-six high school wrestlers may have been distracted by the sunshine that crept through the open doors at Royal, but they didn’t have time to daydream. The camp lasted five days--6 1/2 hours a day--and featured intense instruction and physical training by current and former Sooners.

Representing Oklahoma were assistant coach Jerry Stanley, freestyle coach Mike Gomez, two-time NCAA champion Mickey Martin and Meek, who finished seventh in the nation at 190 pounds last year.

But the small turnout of area wrestlers disappointed Reed.

“This area has plenty of kids to support the camp,” Reed said. “It’s just something where your first year is always a little slow and you build it up from there.”

Simi Valley and Pomona, which also played host to a Sooner camp this summer, shared the expertise of Stanley, Meek, Gomez and Martin. Not a shoddy lineup, but not the staff one would find in Norman, Okla., where the camp runs twice as long and attracts several times as many wrestlers.

“It’s a lot more serious there,” Reed said.

Not that the wrestlers at Royal were all smiles. They had fun but learned some quality lessons, too, according to Royal’s Richard Tucker, who wrestles in the 154-pound division for the Highlanders. Tucker, who has attended the prestigious Von Hitchcock Camp near Lake Tahoe for two years, prefers the Sooner camp.

“They show you more aggressive moves at the Sooner camp, and that helps you win matches,” he said. “At the other camp they show you how to get out of certain positions. They show you how to get into them at the Sooner camp.”

Whether it’s getting out of a cradle or putting an opponent in one, California wrestlers often end up on their backs in an argument over which state produces the better wrestlers.

“These kids are way behind the kids they’re used to dealing with in the Midwest,” Reed said of the task confronting Sooner coaches. “So many of these kids are really novices at the sport.”

Youngsters in Oklahoma begin wrestling earlier and, as a result, take more experience with them into the high school gymnasium. This gap put a twist in the coaching style of the camp.

“The farther we went west, the more time we were spending showing stance and drop-steps,” Meek said.

Late start or not, Stanley says California has its share of talented wrestlers. But they are scattered among more than 1,200 schools. The quality is crammed into a little more than 100 high schools in Oklahoma.

“Anytime you have those kind of numbers, you’re going to have some outstanding wrestlers,” Stanley said. “I think California probably is one of the top 10 states in the country in high school wrestling.”

But Reed says that the more high schools there are with wrestling programs, the thinner the coaching depth. Therefore, in Oklahoma, where there aren’t as many schools, there are more quality coaches available.

Meek, however, failed to prove there were any differences in sleeping habits. Admittedly distracted by the California night life, Meek awoke in time to lead the last hour of the day’s workout. He told the weary wrestlers that, no matter how tired they might be, to keep a positive attitude.

And please stay awake. It wasn’t Oklahoma, a wrestling hotbed, but it wasn’t a Sunday afternoon at the beach, either.