The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Burnett camp is on, with changes
For the past 21 years, Elyria wrestling coach Erik Burnett has spent a majority of his summer working with his brother Scott at their Burnett Trained Wrestling Camp, where they’ve helped train and teach the next generation of high school wrestlers in Ohio.
The camp is still being held this summer, but the brothers have changed and modified their camp due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Normally, Burnett Trained Wrestling is defined by campers spending a week working with fellow wrestlers their age while learning from the state’s best coaches. That’s still the case this summer, but there are still things that are very different.
Instead of working with as many as 10 partners during the week, campers are assigned to one partner whom they work with for the entire week.
Instead of sharing meals together during down times, now campers bring their own meals and eat them on their own.
When a session ends, everyone has to leave the wrestling room. In previous years, some wrestlers and coaches would stay after to work on technique and form.
“We’re taking every precaution we can,” said Erik Burnett. “It’s the opposite of our normal camp experience where kids hang out when they’re not doing anything and enjoy each other’s company. There’s none of that. There’s an intense focus on wrestling, which is nice, but the other intangibles that the kids enjoy just aren’t there. And it has to be that way right now.
“We’ve been telling them that they’ll be able to do something they love so long as they follow the rules. We’ve got to be careful because everything is up in the air. I was nervous about (Gov. Mike DeWine’s) address on July 15 because I was afraid everything was going to shut down. We just have to be really responsible.”
This week marks the first week of Burnett Trained Wrestling, with the sessions being held at Perrysburg High School, where Scott Burnett serves as the wrestling coach.
In a normal summer, the different weeks are spread out across all the summer months and feature commuter and overnight camps at the Burnett’s various wrestling facilities across Northeast and Central Ohio.
That’s not happening this summer, as it’s limited to three different week-long commuter camp sat Perry s burg. This week’s camp features around 45 campers who are split up into two daily sessions in an attempt to limit the amount of people working in the wrestling rooms.
“We can’t offer any overnight camps,” said Erik Burnett. “We didn’t know if we’d be allowed to do that, so we didn’t want to offer it. We’ll get guys who come in from all over the country for our overnights, so if we tried to do it and then ended up canceling those kids would be out of luck.”
As far as the changes to the actual format of the camp, things aren’t too different, in part because of how sanitization is part of the backbone of wrestling.
“Wrestling has been one of the cleanest sports out there,” Burnett said. “We’ve always been chronically mopping mats and checking skin and now we’ve taken that to a different level. We’ve been taking two-hour breaks between sessions to clean the whole place. We’re spraying down the walls, the mats, anything that a kid might touch.”
During Ohio’s lockdown period earlier this year, Burnett did what he could to stay close to wrestling, doing everything from virtual training to watching videos about different techniques and regulations that could pop up as a result of the distancing measures.
“It’s the same stuff with just a lot more to think about,” Burnett said. “It’s been a learning curve for all of us. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve watched a lot of different videos and learned things. Typically, we’re learning anyhow, and we’re still passing new information and new techniques to the kids, but we’re also trying to learn some different guidelines to try to stay up on what’s going on.”
Once the three camp sessions are complete, Burnett will begin to slowly turn his attention toward the uncertainty surrounding this winter’s high school wrestling season. Even if a season is held, there’s a good chance it’ll come with drastic changes.
“There are so many theories out there,” he said. “Is it going be a shorter season or maybe just be in the second semester? I haven’t even thought about working with the kids to make sure we start training for the start of the season. We haven’t thought anything about that, it’s all about wrestling technique and having fun right now.”
Regardless of what those changes look like, Burnett will be ready.
“We’ll do whatever it takes to make a wrestling season happen,” he said with a laugh. “I’m all in.”