Our Wrestling Pilgrimage

My name is Coach Richard Rockwell and I help coach wrestling at an Eastern OR HS team. This summer, my team and I are planning what we are calling a “Wrestling Pilgrimage,” in which we travel from Eastern OR to Colorado Springs to Kansas City to Waterloo, IA, then back home.

Along the way we will be stopping at various locations to wrestle or workout with various teams. We’ve lined up workouts with teams at almost every location we are stopping at, training in all three of the various styles, when needed.
Our team consists of some solid wrestlers and others who are just beginning. The reason behind our trip is that we are from a fairly poor, migrant area, where wrestling still very new to our town. However, this hasn’t stopped us from having some decent wrestlers on our team, including 3 state champs over the past 3 yrs. Our kids rarely leave the area, unless it’s a wrestling trip of some sorts and we want our kids to experience what wrestling is like in different states and show them some of the dominant states, as well as different parts of the country. We want them to realize there is a whole other world outside of Eastern OR and to strive to get better, beyond just wrestling.
Our trip will go as follows:
June 15th EO to Pocatello ID
June 17th Pocatello to Cheyenne WY
June 18th Cheyenne to Colorado Springs CO
June 19th Colorado Springs to Topeka KS
June 20th Topeka to Kansas City KS
June 21st Kansas City to Waterloo IA
June 23rd Waterloo to Sioux Falls SD
June 24th Sioux Falls to Keystone SD(Mt Rushmore)
June 26th Keystone to Billings MT
June 27th Billings to Missoula MT
June 28th Missoula to Colfax WA
June 29th Colfax to EO
As you can see, we have quite a road ahead for us, but the kids are looking forward to it and it will be a great experience. We plan on visiting the OTC in Colorado Springs, working out with Eric Akin in Kansas, hitting the Dan Gable HOF Museum and Mt Rushmore on the way home.
We will be chronicling our journey in blog format on my Oregon website, http://www.theowf.net/the_owf and recording our journey to place on Flowrestling as well for all to follow who are interested. We’ll be wearing our team gear, specially made for this trip, so feel free to say hello if you see us along the way.