Today we’d like to introduce you to Tony Mena.
Hi Tony, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
It had always been a dream of mine to start my own youth wrestling team. After coaching for other teams for over a decade, an opportunity presented itself to not only start my own team but to be able to coach with some of my best friends. We really wanted to focus on a positive mental aspect to youth athletic and mental development. There is nothing better to me as a coach than to build up an athlete’s self-esteem and watch them become fearless and confident in themselves. We actually just won a state title this year. And our secret was not focusing on the State title, but focusing on doing the little things right. Keeping up good grades while also being a positive role model for classmates and teammates. This all led to our best season yet, with many more to come.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
We have not had a smooth road at all. We started our team with seven kids our first year and had steadily grown to almost 40 kids. Then COVID hit and we could no longer train in the high school. We found a wonderful MMA Gym called Glory MMA & Fitness that let us rent their facilities, but our practice times went late into the night. But we made no excuses and plainly told the kids and parents that if success is something they truly want they’ll find a way to get the work in. My coaching staff and I had to work extra hard to create home workouts for the kids and stay late to clean up and lock up the gym after every practice. The other obstacle was that there were very few local tournaments for the athletes to go to. Again, we worked hard to create carpool plans and schedule out who was attending what as the team traveled all over the country to find competition. Through it all, we kept a positive attitude and accepted no excuses. But the bright side was that all the obstacles we faced really helped my coaching staff and my athletes answer the question: Do you really want to be good at this sport or do you just say you want to be good at it?
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
One thing that really sets us apart as a wrestling team is that we really try to follow a more school-like approach to teaching. We build upon a foundation of common techniques and muscle movements, but we also focus on creative play, imagination, and group teaching as well as model some of our activities on Bloom’s Taxonomy to make sure they understand the things they’re learning beyond just plain memorization. It has been such a fun ride so far with amazing kids and parents that have really bought into the system and have found a lot of success in their long-term development.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://www.teamhammeracademy.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teamhammeracademy/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1930437227185912/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5y2HPXuAmfbd2eZ4LS68oQ
Image Credits
Team Hammer Academy
