Veterans wrestling out to make Disney its wonderful world

On Saturday, amateur wrestling in Middle Georgia enters a whole new level as the Veterans High Warhawks compete in a national scholastic duals tournament held at the Walt Disney World Wide World of Sports complex.

According to Veterans wrestling coach Mike Malcolm, Veterans received the opportunity to take part in this weeklong event that will feature teams from all over the United States. It will start with pool duals – all of one team’s wrestlers against the wrestlers of another school – and Malcolm said Veterans is in a pool with two teams from Florida, two from Ohio and one from South Dakota.

Among the Warhawk participants is Kori Walker, who placed in the top five of his weight class at this year’s Georgia High School Association traditional championships for Class AAAA. He will be entering his senior year at Veterans in a couple of months. Walker made it to the match where the winner would get to wrestle for third place in the consolation bracket, but lost 1-0 after three full rounds. So he competed in the match for fifth place overall and won by pinfall.

“Going into my senior year, that means a lot,” said Walker. “Getting on the podium. Now I’m going for the top spot.”

As for Walker’s wrestling style, he said he likes to work on the upper-body, which sounds a lot like Greco-Roman (high school is freestyle).

“My coaches beg me everyday to try to take a shot,” said Walker, not talking about basketball, but about attacking the legs of an opponent. “I’m working on it, but I like the upper body stuff.”

Walker didn’t begin wrestling of any kind until he entered Veterans as a freshman. His first season consisted of eight varsity matches, but by his sophomore year he was a state qualifier.

On the other hand, another Warhawk senior, Michael Mort, is a near lifetime wrestler. In his high school career, he’s gone from 106 in ninth grade (and a state qualifier) to 126 as a junior (though he had injury issues and wasn’t cleared until the final two weeks of the season and made it to state sectionals).

“I kept practicing throughout the whole year and got myself a lot better,” said Mort. “I’ve been working on all aspects of wrestling since I’ve been back. Just the feeling of the win makes me want to get better. To beat the next person who’s better than you.”

“It’s about the work you put in every day,” said Walker, now competing at 182 pounds. “I played football, but (Malcolm, also an assistant football coach) looked at me and said, ‘You’re going to be my next wrestler.’ I came in here and fell in love with it.”

While Veterans will be an intermediate entrant in these Disney Duals, Walker said it is still high level wrestling.

“A lot of the guys on our team haven’t seen any competition like this,” he said, himself only previously wrestling a couple of guys from Florida before. “Not really northern teams. It’s most definitely a different style of wrestling, more of an attack style. It’s something we’re going to have to get used to. It might take those first couple of matches.”

“I think this gets our name out there,” said Mort, who feels Veterans has what it takes to be a powerhouse program in Georgia. “I’ve wrestling in Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana. These are people who are going to be further away from us and bring a totally different style. States in the north tend to be better (in wrestling), more aggressive and physical.”

Walker hits the weight room and the mat to iron out little things in his preparation. His goal is to see the team accomplish something they might not think themselves capable, certainly see each individual hit a personal highlight. But he said it’s also about having fun, realizing that it is the summer, it is important, but there are bigger goals down the road for Veterans.

For Mort, wrestling is the two-a-day ..,. make that three on this particular day of practice to get in as much work as possible before Disney. He said there’s also a lot of running and conditioning to stay close to weight.

“This is going to be our first national tournament as a team,” said Mort. “Our goal is to go out and start pounding on people … make sure they remember us.”

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