By JONAH LOSSIAH
One Feather Staff
Heath Earley wants to boost the wrestling landscape in Western North Carolina.
This journey takes its next step in Cherokee with the YONA Youth Wrestling Championship. This wrestling event is planned for March 5 and 6 and will be the first of its kind held at the Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Convention Center.
Earley has been putting together wrestling tournaments for years. He’s from Canton and wrestled at Pisgah High School. He said that it wasn’t until leaving the area that he realized how different the sport’s culture is in other areas.
The YONA Youth Wrestling Championship event is planned for March 5 and 6 and will be the first of its kind held at the Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Convention Center. (JONAH LOSSIAH/One Feather photo)
“When I first moved to Winston-Salem, out of the mountains, there was a difference in wrestling. The mountains have always primarily wrestled seasonal. Whereas if you come down to the middle of the state, there are multiple clubs that wrestle year-round. Seeing that difference and being able to bring back and have events in western North Carolina, that’s been my goal,” said Earley.
He said that he wants to offer a unique experience to his participants. He plans to pull athletes from throughout the state, saying he already knows folks coming in from Wilmington. He is hoping to bring in between 500-750 wrestlers over the two days.
“You got three different events going on. On Saturday, we have an individual tournament. That individual tournament is from 6 and under all the way through high school. Then on Sunday, we have a rookie event. Then we have a dual-team tournament. The rookie event is for kids with two years’ experience and less. The dual team event, so far, we have 8 teams committed (as of the beginning of February), it’s good that we have that many committed still a month away. Hopefully, we’ll have several more commits.”
Earley said that he is hoping to draw on his experience and his connections throughout the region to make this first event a success.
“I probably ran my very first tournament right around 2014 on my own. I used to run about four tournaments a year, and I’ve cut back to one big tournament. What I do for my tournaments is I try to go big with awards. You go to all these tournaments, my kids did. I took mine around and he had all these medals, and they were kind of the same medal. So, one year I thought, ‘you know what? Let me see what I can do about getting a ring for all my winners.’ This is one thing that I’m excited about this year,” said Earley.
He said that the champions will be receiving a ring and the top three in each category will be getting a medal. Earley has worked closely with several people in the community to ensure that he can respectfully add pieces of Cherokee into the tournament to add to the local feel. He said that he was given approval by the EBCI Business Committee to use the Tribal Seal for the rings and medals for the tournament.
Earley said that he began taking on this type of role when his oldest son started getting into wrestling. He decided he wanted to coach a youth club and get involved at the state level with the North Carolina Wrestling Association for Youth (NCWAY).
“Being from Canton, one of my goals was to bring NCWAY to Western North Carolina. To improve wrestling in North Carolina. The way you improve wrestling, we call it mat time. The more you get out there and the more you participate, the more you’re going to grow.”
He said that this all became possible with the opening of the new convention center at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort. It had been several years since he’d seen the casino and he said he was blown away by the changes. Earley said that it is a perfect space to hold this inaugural tournament.
“What limits me is the number of mats that I can put on the floor. I can do a bigger event by being able to put more mats on the floor. To have 35,000 square feet…typically, the biggest I’ve been able to do in a facility is run six mats. We’re going to run eight mats. I’ve got the potential, I’ve mapped it out, we can run up to 12 mats just in the downstairs portion of the convention center.”
Earley said that his mission is to make this an established event. If it goes well, he wants to immediately start working on the next tournament.
“My goal is to be able to book the day that we finalize this tournament. When we finish up on Sunday afternoon, I want to call Stacy (Pegg, property sales manager at Harrah’s Cherokee) on Monday and plan a date. I would like to do a couple a year, to be honest with you.”
He said the first weekend in March is ideal for many reasons. Namely, it is right after the high school wrestling season and gives athletes another opportunity to test their mettle while they’re still training and at their peak.
“I think we can do this in June as well. June or July, and we sanction it as a national event, and we do national marketing. I think we can pull the East Coast. I usually have folks come to my tournaments from five states anyway. But I think we can go bigger.”
The individual youth and high school tournaments will be held on Saturday, March 5. That Sunday will see the individual youth rookie tournament and the K-8 dual team tournament.
Entry fees are as follows:
- Early Registration (Ends Feb. 25) – $30
- Late Registration (Ends March 3) – $40
- Last Chance Registration (Ends March 4) – $50
- Spectator Day Pass – $15
- Spectator Weekend Pass – $20
- Spectators aged 5 to 11 – $5
For additional information or to enter, you can contact Heath Earley at heathe316@hotmail.com.
