Rolling with the Criminals............

  The theme for this year, "rolling with the Criminals", was chosen for the mileage that the seniors have racked up over their years as wrestlers at Yuma High.
 

1997 was the first long trip that the wrestling program put together.  Coaches Walt Johnson and Jose Cazares took two time state champion Johnny Hurtado back to Pittsburgh to compete in High School Nationals.  This tournament was attended by over 600 wrestlers from the U.S.  In order to compete, a wrestler must have been in the finals of his state tournament during his high school career.

After much fund raising, Honolulu Hawaii for the Iolani Invitational was the big trip in 2001.  Two days wrestling and six days on the beaches, plus a luau made making weight a little tough after the return to the mainland.

The summer of 2002 was a good one, with three wrestlers attending the Mexican Jr. Olympics in Mexico City.  Alex Bermudez, Jesus Jimenez, and Mike Escamilla traveled with a team from Arizona as guests of the Mexican government. Escamilla ended up as the Jr. Olympic Champion of Mexico.  Jimenez placed 5th in Greco.

2003 saw the Crims flying to Chicago, then driving to Green Bay, Wisconsin and eventually ending up at the Kaukauna Cheesehead Invitational with 15 of the best teams in Wisconsin.  Wind chill of minus 28 degrees on Saturday night made the desert rats happy to get back to sunshine and jalapenos.

Trips that the team takes that are closer are:   Las Vegas for the Green Valley Duals, San Diego for the El Cajon Christmas Invitational, Tucson for the always tough Flowing Wells Invitational, Flagstaff and the early season Peaks Tournament, Tempe for the Corona del Sol Invitational, and numerous times back and forth to Phoenix for multiples and region and state tournaments.

Freestyle Western Regionals in Las Vegas and Nationals in Fargo, North Dakota have also been attended by various Crim wrestlers over the past years. 

If you would like to be included as a Criminal Wrestling Sponsor, contact Coach Johnson at Yuma High School. Sponsorships can be either for donations from your business to the Yuma Wrestling Club, or by tax credit forms that are available at the school.  All of these donations make these trips possible for students to visit areas of our great country that they might never see if they weren't a Yuma High wrestler.