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By Jon Smyth e
Athletic Director
Rappahannock County High School started its wrestling program Nov. 1, 2000 with a new mat, a bunch of new wrestlers and a new coach.
The team had some success in its first year, going 6-10-3 in dual meet competition. Not bad for a new team wrestling in the cafeteria of the elementary school.
Coach Jim Wells knew wrestling requires a considerable amount of time spent on perfecting moves and none of these moves involve cafeteria tables and mats. While many schools are forced to “roll out and roll up” their mats for practice, Coach Wells had never met a state champion who came from that environment.
Determined to see his team focus fully on wrestling, Coach Wells and Athletic Director Jon Smythe scoured the county for a permanent facility for the new team. Finding an unused clear span space of over 1600 square feet proved to be impossible. Faced with this fact, they knew a room would have to be constructed. Estimated cost of construction was $70,000.
Both knew with continued success of the program that eventually a room would be constructed. But eventually would be too long especially for these two gentleman. Most wrestling coaches are teachers and start soon after graduating.
Starting at an age when most coaches have hung up their headgear, Coach Wells knew he did not have time to wait for a room to be built by the school system or for the community support to grow to the point where it could be built from donations. Thus he made a decision to put up the money himself, build the wrestling room and then try to get paid back over a future period.
He felt he could get some donations in services and materials and potentially some cash donations as well to help with the initial construction phase. Armed with this desire
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