By Mike Adams – January 12, 2020

Opioid abuse has plagued Long Island for years. In response to the crisis, one organization is striving to use sports as a way to keep young people off the wrong path.

Wrestling Takes Down Drugs (WTDD), a campaign started by the nonprofit Friends of Long Island Wrestling, has been going around high school wrestling meets for the past year and asking student wrestlers to sign a pledge promising to abstain from substance abuse. So far, more than 20 high school wrestling teams have signed the pledge, including Wantagh, MacArthur, Mineola, Port Washington, Massapequa and Locust Valley.

“Our sport has a unique ability that separates it from many sports,” WTDD President Jerry Seckler, himself a former All-American wrestler at Penn State, said. “It’s a competitive sport, it’s a sport that requires competitors to be in great shape and most of the kids that wrestle, if they wrestle long enough, are very interested in maintaining their body and condition.”

The campaign’s website says the organization “believes that the sport of amateur wrestling helps to build the personal characteristics necessary for a strong citizenry, one comprised of individuals with leadership qualities that are based upon self-discipline, self-determination and self-confidence.”

The organization claims that wrestling can serve as an effective solution to many of the problems that lead young people to turn to drugs in the first place, providing benefits like added confidence and a peer group filled with like-minded individuals.

WTDD’s first major event was an educational wrestling meet held at Nassau County Community College in conjunction with Nassau County Executive Laura Curran and county police commissioner Patrick Ryder back in February, which featured hundreds of student wrestlers competing against one another interspaced with brief educational lectures from experts about the harms of drug use and what people can do to stay away from danger. Former Ultimate Fighting Championship title holder and Baldwin-born wrestler Chris Weidman was on hand at the event to lend his expertise to the young wrestlers.

“The kids were extremely interested, they paid real attention,” Seckler said. “What surprised the guys that were doing it was how attentive the varsity kids were.”

WTDD is planning its second annual “Wrestling Takes Down Drugs” event at the community college this coming February. The organization hopes to get every high school wrestling team on Long Island to join their ranks over the next couple years, and has already begun to expand outside the island. The organization’s first event in New Jersey is coming up soon, and later events in Colorado and Oklahoma are in the works as well.

By Gregg Sarra gregg.sarra@newsday.com @Gregg_Sarra Updated January 16, 2020 8:50 AM PrintShare

Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder walked to the center of the Massapequa gym and started to speak. The Freeport and Massapequa wrestlers surrounded him in a large circle as the crowd listened to his impassioned speech on how Wrestling Takes Down Drugs.

Ryder’s rousing speech sent a strong message about the department’s initiative to Take Down Drugs Wednesday night before the regular season dual meet championship between Freeport and Massapequa.

Ryder nailed it. The former Lynbrook wrestler in his anti-drug message empowered the high school athletes to educate the younger kids in the community and lead by example.

“We’re educating kids and building a foundation for our future,” Ryder said. “Our initiatives start in the schools. We can’t continue to just lock people up and think the drug problem will go away. We need to get the message out and educate the young people. And it starts in places like Massapequa that is such a large area and has tons of youth programs.”

In Wednesday night’s pregame ceremony, every wrestler on the varsity and junior varsity teams signed a pledge to take down drugs.

And then the night belonged to the Massapequa wrestlers as the state’s defending Division I dual meet champions took down Freeport, 58-12, to capture the Nassau Conference 1A crown. Massapequa improved to 15-4 and 5-0 in conference and Freeport is 7-5 and 4-1.

By Darwin Yanes

Long Beach and Valley Stream Central High School wrestlers took a pledge against drugs at a dual meet at Long Beach Middle School on Dec. 17.

Friends of Long Island Wrestling — a Wantagh-based organization that uses wrestling to help to build character, leadership and discipline in teens — brought its anti-drug initiative to the school as part of its Wrestling Takes Down Drugs program.

The initiative was launched in February to promote wrestling, spread awareness about the dangers of drug use and tackle the growing opioid and heroin epidemic on Long Island and around the country.

Hilary Becker, a longtime wrestler and board member of the Friends of Long Island Wrestling, stressed the importance of the initiative before the meet and added that wrestling could be the catalyst to save lives.

“You get there on that mat and you get roughed up, you get beat up — that’s a tough thing to go through and that’s a good place for you to train for what’s going to come down the pipe in your life,” Becker said.

Becker was joined by Jerry Seckler, president of the Friends of Long Island Wrestling, to present the wrestlers with Wrestling Takes Down Drugs shirts, which include signatures of students who signed the pledge.

The Friends of Long Island Wrestling has raised money for anti-drug causes in the past. Becker also said that Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder, a former Lynbrook wrestler, wanted to implement similar programs in other sports like soccer, baseball and lacrosse. Ryder has championed the intiave since it started in February.

Long Beach High School head wrestling coach Raymond Adams said that Long Beach has lost too many kids to drugs. He applauded the program and said he hopes it’ll make a difference in the lives of the wrestlers.

“We’re really trying to send a message to our young people that drugs are no good — we’ve lost too many kids to it here in Long Beach and around the county and certainly around the nation,” Adams said.

Adams — who has coached the Long Beach team for the past 22 years and currently has seven wrestlers ranked in the top five of their respective weight classes — said the dual meet matches were like outreach programs to help the youth stay on the right track. He praised his wrestlers for taking the initiative and said he hopes they can help other students

Chris Carvajal, the first-year head coach of Valley Stream Central’s wrestling team, also praised the program’s mission.

“This is a good program to build awareness and to make sure these kids don’t get caught up with those types of decisions, and getting hooked onto any type of drugs,” Carvajal said.“This is a good way to spearhead that and bring awareness.”

Recognizing the growing epidemic of opioid addiction on Long Island, the varsity wrestling teams at Oyster Bay and Locust Valley high schools became the first to commit to an island-wide campaign to “Take Down Drugs.”  The campaign, launched by the Friends of Long Island Wrestling in conjunction with the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, aims to keep youngsters on a healthy, drug-free path by promoting the benefits of wrestling, and by offering ways to support local wrestling programs and local drug counseling services. 

The teams were recognized with certificates of participation by Mr. Jerry Seckler, President of the Friends of Long Island Wrestling, during a ceremony that took place before their Dec. 19 wrestling match at Oyster Bay High School. Informational pamphlets were also distributed to spectators to spread awareness about the campaign.

“This is one of the major problems we have in our communities, particularly on Long Island,” said Mr. Seckler. “There is nothing to insulate the kids against using drugs and we know that if we get kids young enough in wrestling, they will not be into drugs. We have a whole educational program that we are instituting and we hope to go national [with the campaign] by next year.”

In his presentation, Mr. Seckler praised the teams for being the first varsity programs to promote the campaign and for setting an example of living healthy, focused lifestyles through the sport of wrestling. He then presented the certificates to a representative from each team, amid cheers and applause.

Longtime wrestling coach Mr. Doug Axman spearheaded the teams’ participation. Currently assistant coach for Oyster Bay High School’s wrestling team, he was head varsity wrestling coach for Locust Valley from 1988-2007. In 2017, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and received the Lifetime Service Award for his dedication to the sport and for his contributions as an athlete and a coach. He is also a member of the Board of Directors for the Friends of Long Island Wrestling.

“We are all aware of the problems and dangers of heroin and opioid addiction, and the sport of wrestling is an excellent way to promote awareness because the sport instills the qualities of discipline, dedication and the lifestyle of doing the right things,” Mr. Axman said.  “I think it’s basically just the type of athlete a wrestler is… the dedication, discipline, hard work and effort… if you keep promoting that, then you really are on the right track. That’s why it’s such a perfect match.”

Planning for the campaign began last spring and has been an immense undertaking, according to Mr. Seckler. While awareness is the first step of the campaign, coaches will have the opportunity to raise funds through donations and the purchase of “Wrestling Takes Down Drugs” merchandise which will be available on the Friends of Long Island Wrestling website at www.friendsoflongislandwrestling.com. Coaches may also choose to partner with local community-based counseling and drug prevention programs by designating funds to help these programs. The website also contains a host of information and a YouTube video about the campaign. Please visit the site for regular updates.

By Alyssa Seidman

At an inter-district match between Calhoun and Mepham high schools on Jan. 8, the varsity wrestling teams were recognized for their participation in an island-wide campaign to combat the local opioid crisis.

This season, 38 wrestlers from Mepham and 45 wrestlers from Calhoun signed a pledge to “Take Down Drugs.” The campaign, launched by the Friends of Long Island Wrestling, aims to keep youngsters on a healthy, drug-free path by promoting the benefits of the sport and offering ways to support local wrestling programs and drug counseling services.

During halftime, Councilman Dennis Dunne recognized the teams with participation certificates to be displayed in the respective schools. “It’s really an incredible program,” Dunne said. “Every little thing you [can] do against drugs adds to their education. Somebody’s got to set the example . . . and that’s what these kids are doing.”

Mepham wrestling coach Sean Arresto said that by signing the pledge, the student athletes becAme role models to others. “We’re always stressing to our boys that we want them to be not just leaders on the mat but leaders in the building,” he said, “so to do something like this and step up to this problem, which is a huge problem on Long Island, hopefully our kids can be role models for the other kids.”

Calhoun wrestling coach Pete Marques stresses to his athletes that making positive choices on and off the mat sets an example for the younger, aspiring athletes in the community, like the Bellmore-Merrick Bulldogs’ youth wrestlers.

Youth wrestling coach Steve Romano, who attended the match with his athletes, said the more the teams interact, the stronger the local wrestling programs become. “Wrestling is a team sport but also like a family,” he said, “and the younger they get involved in the wrestling, the better it’s going to benefit the boys when they get to junior high and high school.”

By Gary Simeone
FacebookTwitterEmailMessengerCopy LinkSMSShareIt was a historic day on Monday, December 2nd, at a varsity wrestling match between Macarthur and Levittown Division High School. The wrestling teams became the first on Long Island, to sign the ‘Wrestling Takes Down Drugs’ pledge, to help raise awareness of the dangers of drug addiction in our communities. A total of 88 wrestlers, as well as coaches from both teams, pledged to avoid opioids and other addictive drugs while they vowed to focused their attention on the 2019-2020 wrestling season.

The event was sponsored by the Friends of Long Island Wrestling, who helped to get the Wrestling Takes Down Drugs program up and running.

“This is the first commitment from a Nassau County team, in any sport, to avoid the temptation of drug abuse,” said Pascal Perri, co-founder of the  Friends of Long Island Wrestling. “Fortunately it won’t be the last, because as it stands, there are 18 more schools committed to signing the pledge sheet for the current season.”

According to Kevin Murphy, a board member of Friends of Long Island Wrestling, the idea for the program was started in his hometown of Lynbrook, where he is a wrestling coach at the high school. “We started off in the high school, two years ago, on a much smaller scale,” said Murphy. “Kids from the team would walk around school with tshirts promoting the positive attributes of wrestling and at the same time raising awareness of the opoid epidemic.”

That spawned the idea of an event at the school to raise awareness of drug abuse in the community, but Murphy said the school was too small a venue to host something of that scale.

“We wanted to have our inaugural Wrestling Takes Down Drugs day in Lynbrook, but it was too small a location and we ended up hosting at Nassau Community College last February,” said Murphy. “The Nassau County Police Department got involved along with former UFC Middleweight champion and Long Island native, Chris Weidman. It was a really great turn out and a really great day for the community.”

In the last few years, Long Island has been in the midst of a growing opioid epidemic. Hundreds of people have lost their lives to drugs like heroin and the synthetic fentanyl, which is purportedly 50 times more potent than heroin. Murphy said he knows that Levittown is one of the communities that has been struggling with overdoses the past few years, and that is why the wrestling match was scheduled to take place between the two schools.

“We have ten other wrestling matches planned where team members will sign these pledge sheets. There is no other sport out there that is doing something like this,” said Murphy. “These wrestlers are role models in their schools and communities and what they’re doing is very influential for their community.”

Murphy said that after attending the Nassau County Coaches meeting last year, he found a lot of coaches are getting behind the program and they want to get involved in it. “I know that the coaches wanted to do something different and that is why we have 20 teams currently signed up. By the end of the 2019-2020 wrestling season, my hope is to have over 1,200 wrestlers sign the pledges.” On Saturday, December 21st, there is dual meet scheduled between Bellmore-JFK and Bethpage High School at 12 p.m. as part of Bellmore JFK’s Alumni Day.