Kerry McCoy<\/a> was just giving a lesson when he grabbed Naoki’s arm, hooked his hand under his left calf and started charging.<\/p>\nNaoki, 17, was on his way to the mat when the hulking two-time Olympic wrestler retreated and turned to the crowd.<\/p>\n
“And then you finish it from there,”\u009d Mr. McCoy told them. <\/p>\n
Mr. McCoy, who placed fourth at the 2004 Olympics and is now head wrestling coach at Stanford University, spent two hours Monday teaching wrestling to campers at the J Robinson Wrestling Camp at the University of Scranton.<\/p>\n
The five-day camp hosted 80 kids, ages 8 to 18, at the Byron Recreation Center. Campers came from across the Northeast.<\/p>\n
Mr. McCoy ran a fast-paced lesson. He pulled campers from the audience to demonstrate a technique, then paired them up to practice. Mr. McCoy and other counselors floated around, offering pointers and advice, until the process was repeated with a new move.<\/p>\n
Naoki, who wrestles for his high school in Darien, Conn., said he was winded as the afternoon went on. But he was learning, he said.<\/p>\n
“What he tells you works in a real match,”\u009d Naoki said.<\/p>\n
Teaching a group of kids from such a broad age range is challenging, Mr. McCoy said.<\/p>\n
You have to teach moves that they can all learn.<\/p>\n
But he gets around this problem by sticking to the basics and “covering everybody that’s included,”\u009d he said. At the end, it’s a gratifying experience.<\/p>\n
“The most rewarding thing is when you say, ‘OK, this is how you do this technique,’ and they don’t get it, then don’t get it, and then ” it clicks,”\u009d Mr. McCoy said.<\/p>\n
About 14 wrestlers from Abington Heights High School attended the camp. David Potts, 16, who wrestles for Abington Heights, thinks the team will be that much better from the experience.<\/p>\n
“I learned a ton of new moves here,”\u009d David said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Olympic wrestler’s clinic gratifying for kids, coach BY DAN STRUMPF Staff writer Lucky for Naoki Yamaguchi, Kerry McCoy was just giving a lesson when he grabbed Naoki’s arm, hooked his hand under his left calf and started charging. Naoki, 17, was on his way to the mat when the hulking two-time Olympic wrestler retreated and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wrestling"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2B7Di-mW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}