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Big Numbers Turn Out For North Pocono Youth Wrestling Program

40 wrestlers Kindergarten through 6th grade workout inside the North Pocono middle school gym. This brand new youth program has only been in operation for two m...

40 wrestlers Kindergarten through 6th grade workout inside the North Pocono middle school gym.

This brand new youth program has only been in operation for two months and the high turnout number brings hope for a future junior high and varsity program at North Pocono.

"I knew pretty much moving forward that if we wanted to have a wresting team and wrestling program that we had to have a feeder program and pretty much just took a look at the area and said this is a big school district why don't they have wrestling," said Dave Hubler.

Hubler graduated from North Schuylkill in the 1980's when wrestling was king. Matt Mapes is from Williamsport and wrestled at Duke. They both have kids involved in the youth program.

"We'll talk about wrestling here at North Pocono. How much fun is this? On a scale on 1 to 10 I would say 1,000,000!!! Ha! Ha! Why is that? Ugh...Well I would say everything," said David Hubler.

"I love it! It's one of my favorite's. It my favorite sport. I like to do a lot of tournaments and stuff. Tell me about some of the things that you are learning on the mat? I'm learning how to do a cradle, double leg take down and a single leg and a Peterson and some other cradles too," said Brady Mapes.

For this youth program only being together for the last two months they've bonded very quickly. They've already wrestled against two other schools and they plan on having a home tournament here at North Pocono at the end of the month.

"Everyone's been very supportive. A couple of us worked very hard to get the program just up and running and we've had a lot of support from parents, from family, from friends and local businesses," again said Dave.

School board president Scott Keating is working on bringing wrestling back to North Pocono after it left the school in 1988.

"We've had preliminary conversations regarding wrestling here at North Pocono. It's a great start. What we've done here is start the youth wrestling program and we are anxious to get a program started at the district very soon. Not 100 percent sure on the deadline or the time frame, but it is something that we have been discussing," said Scott Keating.

Steve Lloyd reporting for Newswatch 16 sports from Moscow in Lackawanna County.

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