Athlete of the Month |
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| Desmond Bowers |
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| Pictures and Content courtesy of the Bowers Family and Dan Burgess |
| I was always a football guy when I was younger, until my dad wanted me to try something new. So when 4th grade came around he signed me up for an Arizona Buckeye Youth Wrestling Team, and that is where my journey of wrestling began. 3 years of training non-stop and wrestling all over the state with several club teams including Sunkist. |
| Getting small improvements over time but nothing really major until we moved to Green Valley. I joined a great team called Team GV Youth in 7th grade, and that is where my wrestling kicked off. I started traveling a lot and wrestling in several tournaments every weekend. From In-State to Out-of-State I gained more and more experience. I went from not placing at anything, to placing in almost every tournament I went to. Jake Rollans, my Mentor and Coach, started pointing me to something great. Going into my Freshman year of high school I was blessed to have a training partner who was fresh out of college, named Joshua Hoffman. He continually pushed me to my limits and made me better and better. |
| Also blessed With a great Coach named John Ferry, who had great leadership and techniques, helped break my barriers between youth and high school. Continuing my wrestling career in high school, I had amazing partners and Coaches from all over the state, supporting me such as: Justus Scott, Steele Dias, Wally and Willy Zernich, Robert Razo, and all of Nevada’s Coaching staff. Some major people who were a part of my journey were Dan Burgess, Bill Sullivan and Bill Mitchel. They were the ones that trained me in the off season and pushed me to go and compete in the bigger tournaments, like World Team Trials and Fargo. |
| Meeting people who I can call family and friends helped me get to where I’m at. My wrestling days now are spent at Grays Harbor College where I’m training hard to complete some more goals of mine. Here are a few of my accolades, and hopefully I will be adding more to this list. 2016 USAW Cadet GR Nationals – 4th 2016 UWW Cadet GR Nationals 2016 NIAA State Championship – 3rd 2017 NIAA State Championship – 3rd 2018 NIAA State Championship – 1st 2019 NIAA State Championship – 1st 2020 NCWA Nationals Championship- 3rd 2021 USA Wrestling Folkstyle Nationals – 4th |
