If you’ve ever wrestled with the decision of choosing a sports program for your child, Lake Nona Youth Sports may have the obvious answer: wrestling!
Brandon Marshall, director of wrestling for the Lake Nona Junior Lions, launched the fall season this month for kids ages 5 to 15, in collaboration with Kendrick Ellison, wrestling coach for Lake Nona High School.
Marshall believes if parents later decide to enroll their children in other sports, the Junior Lions wrestling program offers a solid athletic base for any sport. “During wrestling practices, we concentrate on developing the sport’s core benefits, such as bodyweight strength, cardiovascular fitness, and coordination,” Marshall said. “The endurance and coordination learned in wrestling easily translates to a variety of sports.”
Marshall is a recent alumnus of the US Olympic Training Site at Northern Michigan University and currently attends the UCF College of Medicine in Lake Nona. He started wrestling in elementary school and knows firsthand that multi-sport athletes enjoy numerous benefits as they progress toward collegiate competition.
“Athletes that play more than one sport often have lower rates of overuse injuries and fewer cases of burnout,” he said. “What’s interesting is that college football coaches are known to attend state-level high school wrestling tournaments in search of talented athletes.”
Wrestling offers several unique advantages to young athletes who learn the importance of hard work through regular drills that build strength and coordination. They find that gaining skills is a steady, slow process requiring perseverance and determination, and the self-discipline needed to develop those skills demonstrates the importance of dedication to achieve long-term goals.
“Since wrestlers compete both individually and as a team, learning camaraderie and encouragement of their peers is critical,” Marshall said. “The sport also teaches character skills that benefit athletes during competition and in life, particularly humility and determination to get back up after you’ve been knocked down, both on the wrestling mat and in life.”
Marshall often shares one of his favorite quotes with young athletes during practices and competitions. “I love what Dan Gable, a two-time national champion and world and Olympic gold medalist, said, ‘Once you’ve wrestled, everything else in life is easy,’ because those words are certainly true for me,” he said. “Wrestling prepared me for the challenges of medical school, and I’m grateful my dad made the decision to get me involved in the sport quite early in my life.”
Lake Nona Youth Sports, supported by community volunteers, dedicated parents, dynamic coaches, and local businesses, is committed to providing valuable life lessons through sports. Serving thousands of children in the Southeast Orlando community since 2004, Lake Nona Youth Sports has helped a number of Junior Lions succeed and move into the high school levels of football, wrestling, soccer, cross country and lacrosse.
For more information on the opportunities provided by the Junior Lions, visit LakeNonaYouthSports.org or contact the wrestling coaches at jrlionswrestling@lakenonayouthsports.org.
