When Total Sports Development’s new wrestling program begins this November, it will feature a coach with a resume full of experience at multiple levels of the sport.
Total Sports Development announced on June 2 that longtime local wrestling coach Ben Hawk was hired to lead the organization’s “TSD Toro Wrestling.” The team invites kindergartners through eighth graders to participate and will begin at 6 p.m. on Nov. 4 at Yelm Middle School.
Hawk, a 20-year wrestling coach at club and youth levels, brings a lot of experience to the TSD Toro Wrestling program. He’s won 12 Washington State Wrestling Association state championships across three age groups and has been a triple crown winner with championships in folkstyle, free-style and Greco-Roman styles in the same year. His experience as a coach includes over 20 college wrestlers, two international wrestlers on Team USA, one national champion junior women’s freestyle wrestler, two national finalist junior women’s freestyle wrestlers and three multiple-time All-Americans in junior freestyle and Greco-Roman. Hawk has also coached over 100 state medalists and over 30 state finalists.
Registration for the program opened on Aug. 5 at totalSD.org/tsd-toro-wrestling.
“After the levy failed, TSD has done a good job of getting the whole community involved. I just really trust the guys involved in it,” Hawk told the Nisqually Valley News. “There’s going to be in-house competition. We have teams from Spanaway, Eatonville, Rainier, Tenino, Tacoma, Puyallup, Hoquiam that’ve already said they’d come out and we’ll have team duals, where we have Yelm vs. Rainier matches, or we’ll have multiple levels of matches for the participants.”
Hawk and TSD intends to create a low-pressure environment with the community wrestling program.
He said junior wrestling leagues in the area are very large, and last season’s final tournament was hosted at the ShoWare Center in Kent, which he did not support.
“That’s a high stakes, high-intensity situation for 5-year-olds, 6-year-olds, 7-year-olds — little kids. I don’t feel that’s the best way to develop little kids wrestling in the junior league community. I was looking for a solution, as well, where we keep all of our competition in house, and people come and wrestle with us,” Hawk said. “My expectations are reaching out and getting kids that burnt out, weren’t excited about sitting in the gym for two or three matches. We want to keep those kids involved in wrestling to learn the skills. This community program is going to address the issue of pushing kids so quickly into competitive atmospheres where they’re not developed with the skills needed to survive against the competitive wrestlers.”
He wants youth wrestlers of all experience levels to learn how to properly “get on the mat, shake hands and wrestle someone.”
He added that the community-based program will be about learning how to wrestle, learning new strategies and eventually beginning to compete against other similarly abled competitors. The competitive team will participate in USA Tournaments.
“Everyone can try wrestling. Everyone can do it. Get on the mat and roll around, everyone can do it. Big, small, quick, slow — it doesn’t matter. It’s the most inclusive sport in the world,” Hawk said. “I’ve seen deaf wrestlers. I’ve seen blind wrestlers. I’ve seen wrestlers with one leg. Everyone can be in wrestling, and I really hope the people in Yelm see the great lessons learned from wrestling.”
