This article was originally printed in the Mid-Island Times https://www.midislandtimes.com/articles/high-school-wrestlers-sign-pledges-to-take-down-drugs/
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.
