By KEVIN ECKLEBERRY

Daily News

It was a change of pace for Callaway’s wrestling team.

Throughout the summer, Callaway’s wrestlers have been getting together at the school for workouts, with the hope of making the 2019-2020 season a memorable one.

Last week, the wrestlers were at the school once again, but they weren’t there to improve their own skills.

For one day, Callaway’s wrestlers turned into teachers as the team hosted a youth camp in the school’s indoor practice facility.

The youth camp was the idea of Jason Boatman, who is heading into his second season as Callaway’s head coach.

“This is the first youth camp we’ve ever had,” Boatman said. “We were just trying to generate interest from the younger crowd at our elementary schools, and see if they like it, and get them excited about wrestling, and just introduce it to them. If you introduce it at a young age, that’s a positive.”

The instructors included Boatman, as well as wrestlers from Callaway High and Callaway Middle.

“The cool thing was, we had a lot of our high-school and middle-school wrestlers help out,” Boatman said. “They’d go around and help them out. When we’d teach them a move, they’d get to drill it on a high-school or middle-school wrestler. It was really engaging.”

Boatman enjoyed watching the campers learn the sport, and he recalls one young wrestler in particular who had a great time.

“There was one second-grader who was really into it,” Boatman said. “He kind of stole the show.”

For the most part, the campers were all newcomers to the sport, including the enthusiastic second-grader, and Boatman said that was a challenge.

“When you try to get into detail, or even work on the very basic moves, it takes a while,” Boatman said. “But it was really good. You’d teach the steps, and there are little drills you can do to help them. You’d do three or four drills, and they ate it up. Hopefully it’ll stick with them in a positive way.”