June
24, 2005:
Deseret Morning News
Wrestling Club Grabbing Lots of
Accolades
by Michael Black
SANDY — To
say that the Mountain Top Wrestling Club has enjoyed
success since its inception six years ago (formerly Jordan
Freestyle Wrestling) may be an understatement. To hit
closer to the truth, there needs to be several adjectives
in front of success; rousing, tremendous or unbelievable
come to mind.
The club got
its beginning when William (Bill) Kilpack III— a former
AAU national champion and seven-time national medalist
wrestler — was looking for somewhere to allow his
4-year-old son William IV to wrestle. After contacting
every club and school in the Salt Lake area, he determined
there just was not anything available for the lowest
weights of wrestling.
"We just
wanted to get William started," said Kilpack. "We looked
everywhere and couldn't find anything, so we decided to
give him and others somewhere to start."
From that
humble beginning, the club has grown into more than 75
wrestlers ranging from age 4 to adult. The club is run
through Salt Lake County Recreation and is based at Jordan
High School.
Mountain Top
runs from January through July, and club dues run about
$50. The team practices about three times a week and
attends 18-20 tournaments or meets. Only six to eight of
the tournaments are held in Utah, leaving 10-12 times that
the team travels out of state.
The club was
just granted a nonprofit status that will allow it to do
further fund-raising and allow more sponsors to cover its
travel expenses.
Bill Kilpack,
who works as a vice president of a mortgage company, said
that he spends easily over 40 hours a week maintaining and
running the club but that the rewards far outweigh the
time commitments.
"You could
say that we are a wrestling family," he said. "We love it.
I can't think of anything else I would rather do with my
time."
All the time
put in by the wrestlers and coaches has paid off on the
mats. The team is just returning from the Utah Summer
Games with a long list of accolades. Nine out of 10
wrestlers that competed in Folk-Style — one of the three
styles of wrestling practiced, taught and competed in by
the club and at the Summer Games — earned a medal. Twelve
of 12 earned a medal in Greco-Roman, and 11 of 12 brought
home an award in Freestyle.
"This was a
great weekend for the guys," said Kilpack. "They had a few
weeks off and came back hungry. This was just what they
needed to kick off the rust for the big tournaments that
will round out the season between now and the end of
July."
Four
wrestlers from Mountain Top won gold medals in the three
styles. They were 7-year-old Skylar Orton of Midvale,
Bantam (ages 7 and 8) 45 pounds; 8-year-old Tayler Johnson
of Draper, Bantam 60 pounds; 10-year-old William Kilpack
of Sandy, Midget (ages 9 and 10) 70 pounds; and
11-year-old Tyler Jensen of West Valley City, Novice (ages
11 and 12) 60 pounds.
Several of
the wrestlers are at a tournament in Winnemucca, Nev.,
this week at a Western regional and are preparing for the
national meet to take place in Green Bay, Wis., near the
end of July.
Even with all
the success the team has enjoyed recently, Kilpack feels
that the rewards are more than medals and will continue
long after an athlete leaves Mountain Top.
"We are 100
percent behind these kids," he said. "We want to make
their lives better. The discipline and work ethic they
learn carries with them the rest of their lives. It helps
not only to make them a better wrestler but better people
in the end."
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