Despite the ongoing disruptions, delays, and cancellations across the world as the COVID-19 pandemic persists, it’s been a busy summer in Philadelphia.

The rapid growth of regional training centers across the country has resulted in somewhat of an arms race each year with the best wrestlers considering which post-collegiate programs best fit with their Olympic and world championship-level goals. 

The constant action this summer has felt a bit like NBA free agency — with daily rumors and growing speculation about where the nation’s best wrestlers might end up. At the moment, there’s no hotter program in the country than the Pennsylvania Regional Training Center. 

The announcement of Mark Hall as the program’s newest addition was one of the most intriguing moves of the summer, but it was Jordan Burroughs’ decision to take his talents to the City of Brotherly Love that solidified the PRTC as a major player in the United States wrestling landscape. 

Philly is a city that loves its fighters, so there seems to be no better time than now for the nation’s oldest city to embrace the world’s oldest and greatest combat sport. 

As leadership within the RTC continues to foster an atmosphere of unity and actively seeks athletes who share a common vision, the potential for wrestling in the city is endless. It’s that potential to build something special as a team and to impact the greater Philadelphia community that attracts the country’s best athletes to the city.

Same Old Attitude

It’s been a long time since there was this much wrestling talent living and training in the Philadelphia area, but it certainly isn’t the first time. In order to understand the sport’s recent surge in the city, it’s necessary to go back over 20 years — long before guys like Mark Hall had even put on a pair of wrestling shoes. 

Of course, the wrestling community is familiar with the history of Foxcatcher. Just 20 miles outside of the city in Newtown Square, it was the training site for many of the country’s elite wrestlers at the end of the 20th century. 

After Dave Schultz’s tragic murder, many former Foxcatcher wrestlers and friends of Dave came together in order to determine best ways to move forward without the sport’s most revered ambassador. A close friend of Dave Schultz, UPenn coach Roger Reina, among others, was heavily involved in the creation of the Dave Schultz Wrestling Club to support Team USA wrestlers preparing for the upcoming Olympic games. The newly formed club was as much about healing as it was about wrestling. Named after Schultz as a way to honor his memory, it was “something in his name, to show support for Nancy and his children,” Reina explained.

Meanwhile, the wrestlers of the Dave Schultz WC united behind the loss of their friend and shined on the mat, with three members making the 2000 Olympic Team in Sydney. In just a short amount of time, the new club had outperformed any and all expectations.

At the start, The Dave Schultz WC was only supposed to be temporary. However, eight years and two Olympic cycles later, it was clear they had something special, laying the foundation for the PRTC to be established later that year. 

From there, things really began falling into place. The University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University wrestling programs teamed up to become the first regional training center of its kind to unite two college wrestling programs under one banner — a tactic that’s since been mimicked by other clubs like the NJRTC. Olympic gold medalist and former UPenn/Dave Schultz WC wrestler Brandon Slay was hired as the PRTC head coach and executive director. Meanwhile, Reina was brought back on board for his second tenure as the UPenn coach, along with heavy alumni support. 

Leadership around the PRTC and its affiliated organizations is now littered with familiar faces. Two-time NCAA champ for UPenn, Matt Valenti, is a PRTC board member and an associate athletic director at his alma mater. Meanwhile, former PRTC competitor BJ Futrell just took over as mentoring director at Beat the Streets Philly. 

The PRTC is an organization united. From the outside, this success may seem like it has happened suddenly, but for everyone involved from the start, it was just part of the plan.

We’re In The Building

Since establishment, the PRTC has sustained a solid roster of national team-caliber wrestlers including Richard Perry, Ben Honis, and Dan Vallimont, to name a few. With that said, RTC’s across the country are consistently trying to bolster rosters in order to set wrestlers up for high-level success. There’s no denying the PRTC turned up the heat in the past year by adding a number of studs including three-time All-American and former New Jersey high school standout David McFadden, as well as NCAA finalists Ethan Lizak and Joey McKenna.

However, things really changed this summer with the commitment of NCAA champion from Penn State Mark Hall and, of course, five-time World and Olympic champion Jordan Burroughs.

Hall and McKenna were two of the hottest free agents coming out of NCAA wrestling the past two years, while Burroughs is the country’s most celebrated and accomplished wrestler. All three likely had more prospective RTC suitors than cheesesteak options in South Philly. Mark Hall could have easily stayed in what was likely an ideal training situation in Happy Valley. Same with McKenna, who joined the PRTC by way of Ohio State.

This is a fact that’s not lost on Reina.

“It shows they believe in what is happening here” he noted.

Hailing from a program loaded with NCAA, World, and Olympic champions at Penn State, Hall recognizes the importance of filling the room with talent. This summer, the PRTC has shown a serious commitment to doing just that.

“This is my future,” Hall explained. “Those guys will be wrestling, not only with me, but around me. So, I want them to know that we’re building something good.”

The expectation is that if the PRTC continues to add high-level talent, Philly wrestling will become more and more attractive to members of the community as well as other prospective athletes.

By adding guys like Hall and McKenna, the PRTC adds not only former stars of NCAA wrestling, but also seriously accomplished freestylers. Hall won cadet and junior-level world titles to go along with his NCAA championship, while McKenna was a world team member at every level of his career. It was these prior experiences with Team USA in the past that introduced both wrestlers to PRTC Coach Brandon Slay, who was working as a coach in Team USA’s developmental program at the time. Each identified that familiarity and bond with Coach Slay as an important factor in their decisions to join to the PRTC. 

If the addition of a star like Hall got the Philly hype train rolling, the commitment from five-time World and Olympic champion Jordan Burroughs sent it full steam ahead. 

Burroughs’ decision to return to the East Coast and train less than 30 minutes away from where he grew up could be transformational for the sport in the Philadelphia area. Though he still plans to compete for one final Olympic cycle, the expectation is for Burroughs to join the PRTC as a sort of player-coach — bringing with him, not just his famous double-leg takedown, but a decade of experience representing the USA on the world and Olympic level. In a way, it’s not unlike the role Dave Schultz played at Foxcatcher so many years ago.

It’s difficult to ignore the similarities between Burroughs and the late Schultz. Both are unconditionally respected by their peers as competitors on the mat and as men off of it. Few have made greater impacts on the sport. Now, Burroughs will have a chance to further that impact by serving as a role model in the community where he was raised, as he explains in a blog post about the decision below. 

“I’m a true believer that the greatest work I will ever do will not be on the wrestling mat. An athlete’s legacy extends far beyond what they’re able to accomplish on the field of play. I have the ability and the voice to empower and lead the young men and women of the next generation, and I want to do that in the same place that I began.”

For The Love Of The City

Despite earning reputations as more of a basketball (or football) city, it’s difficult to ignore the endless opportunities available for wrestlers in Philadelphia. Just miles from the Lehigh Valley and a short trip across the river from Jersey, Philly’s location in proximity to other wrestling hotbeds is undeniable. 

Aside from the prime location, though, wrestlers embrace the chance to train at one of the country’s only RTC’s located in a major American city.

Hall acknowledged the faster pace and the hardened attitude that comes from being from Philly, but it’s the city’s diversity and the opportunity to impact his new community that he’s looking forward to most. 

“One of the things I really looked at too, was being around a strong African-American community,” he said.

Both Hall and Burroughs have been vocal leaders in the African-American community during their careers. This summer, in light of increased awareness around racial injustices in America, both were heavily involved in the forming of the Black Wrestling Association, a nonprofit that “inspires, connects, and empowers black wrestlers and allies to grow wrestling through representation, equality, and opportunity.” Similar to Burroughs, Hall knows he has a chance to have a meaningful impact beyond wrestling and he recognizes that Philadelphia provides him with opportunities to do so.

“I’m really excited to be around people that look like me,” Hall continued.

This enthusiasm to give back and serve others is not just encouraged by the PRTC leadership and athletes, but expected. The PRTC motto — “Believe in Better” — unites the athletes under this common goal.

Beat the Streets Philly, a nonprofit organization “devoted to fostering the holistic growth of student-athletes living in at-risk under-served communities,” also has a synergetic relationship with the PRTC. The headquarters, located just three blocks away from the Penn and Drexel wrestling rooms, provides Philadelphia youth with exposure to premiere wrestling talent right in its own backyard. 

In an interview on the Bader Show, coach Brandon Slay identified an “opportunity to serve” as something that distinguishes the PRTC from other training centers across the country. 

“BTS Philly, PRTC, Penn Wrestling and Drexel Wrestling, we come together and . . . we believe in better for wrestling. We believe in better for these inner-city kids. We believe in better for guys like Mark Hall joining our organization. We believe in better for Penn and Drexel wrestlers that want to become NCAA champions . . . and to ultimately make a generational change in the city of Philadelphia.”

To anyone in and around the Philadelphia wrestling community, one thing is clear: That change is coming.