The California Pintos wrestling team got back to work Friday night and Saturday morning at their annual summer wrestling camp. Head coach John Heimann reached out to an old friend in Missouri high school wrestling legend Jarrett Jacques to help lead the camp.
Jacques went to high school at Kirksville and became a legend by become a four-time Missouri state champion in the 152-pound weight class. Jacques became only the 30th wrestler in state history to go undefeated in the state championships. Now Jacques is majoring in Communications at the University of Missouri and will head into his final year of collegiate wrestling in the fall.
When Heimann contacted Jacques to request help with the Pintos summer camp, Jacques was ecstatic and quickly made arrangements to lend his help to California.
"I knew John back in high school. He actually went to a rival school. He went to Moberly High School and I went to Kirksville. We were technically rivals, but we've built a bond through our teams and we've kept up with each other ever since," Jacques said. "He reached out to me and said that he was going to be the next head coach here and asked if I wanted to come to a camp and I said, I'd love too."
Teaching youth wrestlers is nothing new for Jacques. He traditionally spends part of his summer hosting wrestling camps with his fellow Mizzou teammates. Jacques has learned a couple of valuable lessons on how to teach wrestling at these camps based on age and sometimes weight class depending on how attends the training camps. In the case of last week's camp in California, Jacques based his lessons more on the age group of the wrestlers.
"Most of the time, the lessons will differ based on age. If I'm teaching little 7 to 8 year-olds, it will differ to if I'm teaching middle schoolers or high schoolers. Weight doesn't come into a huge play. I'll show the big guys a little variation of what I'm doing, which makes it more of a label for them," Jacques said.
Jacques also said that the inspiration he got for wrestling came from multiple figures throughout his life beginning from the time he started club wrestling as a youth. He was a club wrestling from age 8 to 18. The hard work helped make Jacques one of the best wrestlers that the state of Missouri has ever seen.
Jacques' goal at the camp was not only to provide lessons and conditioning for the Pintos going into the 2022-23 season, but to also help spread the message about wrestling in the community and help to build the wrestling team in the upcoming years.
"Hopefully they have fun and spread the word and tell their friends that wrestling is a lot of fun," said Jacques. "It's hard, but I wish that they look at this as enjoying the process through the hard stuff and being able to finish the practice, and being able to amaze themselves that they actually did that."
"I'm very happy that Jarrett agreed to come help us with our summer camp. He and I go back to our high school days and I know how valuable it is to have someone like him help us out," Heimann said. "Our goal next year is to not only get more of our kids to the state championship, but we also want to establish a culture of winning here that is respected across the state. I think with the progress we've made here, we might be on our way to doing just that."
Jarett Jacques (above) and Pintos head coach John Heimann (below) gives a demonstration to the wrestlers on a pin-down move. (Democrat photo/Evan Holmes)
Austin Suen and Kwynnon Duvall practice an offensive move at California's summer wrestling camp. (Democrat photo/Evan Holmes)