The Sylvan Hills wrestling team recently made a big change moving from the old gym over to the old auditorium. This has been a long project in the works.

The team started planning last summer and actually got to make the move this summer. Last winter they started doing fundraisers to raise money for the project such as selling shirts and having sponsors for their tournaments.

This project completion was highly credited to the students on the team, as well as some outside donors and even the football team coming out to help unload materials. Springdale Harbour, Little Rock Central Greenbrier donated their old wrestling mats.

This change provides 32 practice circles which lets the team practice 64 kids safely all at the same time. This also lets them have their own space, rather than having to share a practice space with other sports that used the same area before. In which the team had to spend 20 minutes of their time rolling out the mats and rolling them back up and they now get this 20 minutes back to practice.

We asked Coach John Clark how he feels about the move he said “I think it’s going to be great because now we have room to practice everyone all at once right after school.”

Coach Clark emphasized that the team really needed this extra time and space to provide the most efficient and safe space to practice.

Although it’s a great change and will help for better practice environment, there are also some bittersweet feelings for Coach Clark. He explained that the team has practiced in the old gym since 2017 and that the program was built through that gym. All their first came in that building, first practice, first wins, etc.

Coach Clark described the kids to be happy with the move and happy with all the hard effort that they put in to make this happen.

Coach Tipton, Mr. Allen, and Admin at Sylvan Hills all showed support with the project wanting to see these kids be successful.