New Wrestling Facility Now Open

Wrestling practices and competitions have been held in the field house along with other sports such as the girls and boys’ basketball and the gymnastics team, this causing many problems squeezing in room for wrestling practice; however, the team now has their own wrestling facility open and ready for the wrestlers to have their own space.

The new wrestling facility was finished in mid-January and open for the wrestling team in the space of the old HUHS fitness center.

Before the facility was built when the wrestling team practiced in the field house, there were many distractions for the players and shortened practice time. Senior wrestling member Tyler Rakowski is pleased with the new facility. “Our own space is the best aspect of it,” Rakowski said. “It gives us less distractions and more time to focus.”

Wrestling coach Mike Cummings is also excited about the new wrestling facility. “We’ve wanted our own wrestling facility as long as I’ve been coaching, and that's been over 22 years,” Cummings said.

The new facility includes pull-up bars, ropes, and new wrestling mats which will be coming in March.

With the new facility, “gives us our own area to work, where we can have a contained environment and just focus on our kids,” Cummings said. “Just to have a stand alone facility, where we can just have wrestling practice and we don't have to compete with the other sports that are trying to run practice at the same time is pretty nice”.

The process of building the new wrestling facility started after the workout gym was finished and relocated to the front of the building.

“The overall space was completed in about two months; we are still waiting for the wrestling mats to be delivered,” athletic director Scott Helms said. The new wrestling mats will arrive in March now instead of February due to COVID delays.

The Hartford administration paid for the general cost of the construction, while the mats were funded by the Hartford community which cost $50,000.

The new facility “also provides a space for our youth program to practice as well,” Helms said.