COVID-19 puts Lincoln Loggers Wrestling on hold

Wrestling in Lincoln usually starts in December, but with school closed, the start date has been postponed.

Though wrestling isn’t a school-sponsored sport, wrestling coach Ezra Schwalm said he felt it would be unfair to go forward with practice while the school was closed. Schwalm does hope to start wrestling practices if school opens after the Christmas break.

“My plan before school shut down was basically (at the)beginning of December to get it lined out as quick as I could. My goal was to get it rolling last week, to hold a parent meeting and start practice up. The new goal is hopefully they go back to school after Christmas break and hopefully within a week of that we’ll be practicing,” said Schwalm.

Schwalm expects wrestling may use a waiver process this year to allow students to practice. “I’m not going to make kids wear masks and wrestle,” said Schwalm. “If they want to, fine, but that is not going to be a requirement."

Even with practices potentially going ahead, it’s uncertain what tournaments might look like. Lincoln wrestles as part of the Central Montana Little Guy Wrestling Club.

“No decision has been made on the tournaments yet. Last I heard - it’s been a while - they said they’d wait ’til January to make a decision,” Schwalm said. “It’s mostly due to venues. A lot of people are not renting out their facilities to hold a tournament and to allow for some teams to practice.”

Schwalm said he had hoped to look into opportunities to work with other small town teams that might be practicing, to organize a small meetup for kids to wrestle against each other if the tournaments were cancelled.

The wrestling season usually goes through March. Schwalm said he had hoped to keep kids wrestling last year after the season ended, but with fewer practices, but the timing didn’t work out.

“Ironically, this all happened right after the state tournament this last March. I originally wanted to keep practice year-round, just scaled back. Just so they could show up and keep skills fresh and everything. In reality, you don’t become a good, good, great wrestler wrestling three months out of the year,” said Schwalm.

Schwalm still hopes to expand the wrestling club to move on to bigger tournaments and tournaments for older students. This year, though, the plan is just to get started.

“As soon as we possibly can, we’re gonna start up, even if it’s just practice. We’re not going to cancel. If at all possible, we’re gonna do something,” said Schwalm. “Anybody interested—five and up, even the older kids. I do have hopes and dreams and plans of going to bigger and better stuff, so when they hit 14 they don’t have to stop or travel to Helena to keep doing it. Even if we just practice, if there’s older kids that want to come, by all means.”

Lincoln Loggers wrestling has been popular with Lincoln kids since it was established by Bob Zadick in 2016.

Zadick passed away earlier this year, following a period of declining health.

Schwalm, who had been an assistant coach to Zadck, took over duties as head coach last year.