The temperature was over ninety degrees in late July. Wrestlers from
around the country were engaged in one-on-one live wrestling. Not more
than ten minutes passed and everyone on the mat was drenched in sweat,
but they pressed on. At 15 minutes the whistle blew, the action stopped
and each wrestler found his individually labeled water bottle for a two
minute water break. After the two minute break the whistle blew again
and the paired off wrestlers began again, this time for ten minutes.
The intensity of the wrestling didn’t slow down as time went on. None
of the wrestlers wanted to be responsible for making the group do 50
yard bear crawls or push-ups because he was not pulling his weight. Ten
physically draining minutes pass and the whistle blows again. Two
minutes of water and rest before the next whistle. Five minutes, break,
five minutes, break, ten minutes, break, and finally one more grueling
15 minute live wrestling session.
After the final 15 minute session, the camp leader, who had been
observing the action from the side, gathers up the sweat drenched
wrestlers. He summarizes an earlier session the wrestlers had with a
group of Navy SEALS giving them the collective group results of the
swimming test the SEALS put them through. He then moves on to the final
day’s workouts. He asked the wrestlers how many of them are worried
about the 15 mile run that laid ahead of them the next and last day of
the camp. About half of the wrestlers raised their hands. Then he asked
how many of them think they can run seven and a half miles. Every one
of the wrestlers’ hands went up. “All you have to do then,” the coach
said, “is turn around and run back.”
I asked Ed Henry, a wrestler from Michigan who was preparing for his
senior year of high school and was back for his third straight year at
the camp, why he puts himself through this. I mentioned there must be a
hundred wrestling camps he could choose, why choose this camp?
“Here you have no distractions. It is all about wrestling. Before my
first year coming here, I was 18-32. After coming here one year I was
32-18. It (his big turn around) was all because of this camp. It gave
me the confidence I needed to compete against the top guys. After
wrestling with (among others) Cole Konrad and Rulan Gardner, I knew I
could handle any wrestling situation I would get into.”
As another season concludes, another off season begins and with it the
summer camp season. Why do athletes from all over the country give up
28 days of their summer to come to the J Robinson 28 day intensive
camp? According to J Robinson, head coach of the Minnesota Gophers, and
countless former camp survivors, it is not just to improve in the
wrestling room and it is not just for the coveted “I Did It” t-shirt.
It is because the 28 day intensive camp turns high school athletes into
better high school wrestlers and more importantly gives them skills in
life to turn high school kids into men.
The idea for a wrestling camp like few had seen got its start at the
University of Iowa back in 1978. Robinson and his best friend at Iowa,
John Marx, decided to start a camp so kids could “train the way we used
to train”. Robinson said Marx, at the time the recruiting coordinator
at Iowa, was the “idea guy” while Robinson, who in 1978 was an
assistant coach at Iowa, handled the wrestling part of the camp. That
first camp brought in 102 kids. Now 28 years later the camp has grown
to over 3000 kids last year alone. The J Robinson camps have expanded
into hockey and basketball and have camps spanning from the east coast
to the west coast.
“I tell kids when they ask me about the 28 day camp, it’s going to be
hard. Probably the hardest thing you have ever done, but if you finish
you will be a better athlete.”
Henry supported Robinson’s statement, “I have been to intensive camps before. Their hardest day is every day here.”
“We (Robinson and Marx) wanted to run a camp like we used to train. We
can do things here you can’t do in the regular season,” says Robinson.
“You can push them to a different level.”
“How do you get kids tough?” Robinson continued, “Two cars are going 60
miles per hour down the highway. How do you catch them? When one car
pulls over to the diner the other one doesn’t. During the season,
everyone is working hard. Summer is when you can catch up. In the
summer some kids pull off into the diner and some don’t.”
Instead of pulling over at the diner, the kids learn something
Robinson‘s parents taught him, “They learn they can out work 90% of all
Americans. You can be in the top 10% in anything if you don’t mind
working. You don‘t have to be the smartest, the most physical, the best
at everything, you just have to out work people.”
Because of all the work that goes into completing it, every Robinson
camp loses 10 to 15 percent of its participants, but Robinson says that
is OK. “If they don’t want to be at the camp, that’s fine. It doesn’t
mean they are bad people. It is not for everyone.”
Robinson said in the past he tried to get all the kids to stay, but
would spend hours trying to save two or three guys at the expense of
the other 200.
“We don’t want to spend our time with people who don’t want to be here.
We as a society,” he continued, “more and more are so concerned about
the bottom ten percent that we don’t take care of the rest of the
people who want to be there. It sounds kind of cruel, but you have to
prioritize your time where you can do the most good.”
Sometimes people ask Robinson why work so hard and get in such good
shape three or four months before the season starts. Robinson says that
is one of the misconceptions about his camp. They work this hard to get
into shape for the season, but the camp is about preparation.
Robinson says “Preparation changes expectation. When they go back
(after the camp) they will expect to do better; they have a different
confidence level. “
Along with confidence they learn a set of life skills that can become the basics not only for wrestling, but life.
“Society is teaching kids the wrong values. Society is teaching kids
everyone is the same and needs to feel good. That’s not life. Society
is setting kids up for failure.”
“The lines are definitive here, either do what you are supposed to do
or you don’t graduate. You have to do your workbook every day. You have
to line up every day. You have to do your laundry. You have to do it
every day. You don’t get to eat seven apples on Sunday and that makes
up for the week.”
In order to graduate and get the t-shirt you have to be responsible and
accountable for your actions. Most of the points a wrestler needs to
earn to graduate have nothing to do with wrestling skills and are under
each wrestler’s control. Don’t be late. Do your journal. Have your name
on your water bottle. Line up when told to line up. Shower before
meals. These are things you have to do for 28 days no matter how tired
you are from the days work outs, but are things all the kids have
control over.
“This is the way the world is. It is not that harsh, but you are responsible and accountable for what you do. It is up to you.”
“We are trying to teach kids life skills. We redefine words for them.
Discipline, sacrifice, dedication and hard work; these are just words
to most kids. They don‘t have any life experiences to go with the
words. (Society) complains about the young kids, they don’t have any of
these skills; they are all skills. There is no place they can get them.”
At a J Robinson camp, the kids get them. They teach them that
discipline is doing what you don’t want to do, when you don’t want to
do it. At camp they don’t want to go, but they have to go - they learn
they can do it. They teach them dedication; they have to stay the whole
time, 28 days, not just one match or one tournament. They teach them
sacrifice - they come here to wrestle. There is not a lot of playtime:
eat, sleep, and wrestle. Their definition of work changes; Robinson
said, “They have a definition of work and I have a definition of work.
When they leave here their definition of work is a lot different.”
Learning these skills is the most important part of camp. “Learning to
work is a skill,” said Robinson. “If you can teach them that skill in
28 days, you will give them something most people don’t have.”
When the kids complete the camp, they are given something that will carry over into the practice room.
“Send a kid to intensive camp; he comes back with all these skills:
show up on time, work hard, all the things we stress, now all (coaches)
have to do is teach them the wrestling skills.”
But the wrestling room is just where the benefits of the intensive camp
start. The real value of the camp happens outside of the wrestling room.
Discipline, sacrifice, dedication and hard work are things everyone,
athlete or not, can use to improve themselves. If people can experience
what these words really mean then Robinson says, “It doesn’t matter
what the medium is”.
Through the years Robinson has received many letters and emails from
former campers thanking him for helping to teach them these words. They
have come from people from all walks of life: the business world, the
blue collar world and the military to name a few.
During the last 28 day intensive camp held in Minnesota, a group of
Navy SEALS joined the camp to talk to the wrestlers. They had the
wrestlers do part of the Trident Challenge. Stripped down to its
essentials the part of the Challenge the intensive campers were to
complete was a timed swimming test. During this test it became evident
that not many of the guys were going to finish in the allotted time.
One of the wrestlers came within just a few seconds of a qualifying
time. Robinson said one of the camp staff asked the SEAL who was in
charge of the drill, “You’re going to give it to him right?”
Robinson said, “The SEAL turned around and definitively said, ‘he
didn’t make it’. That said it all. Here you have some of the elite
people in the world; it has nothing to do with them feeling good. He
didn’t make it. Next time try harder, that’s what life’s all about.
You’re not a bad guy, you just didn’t make it. That is what we are
trying to teach them - there is a standard.”
There is a standard at the J Robinson Camp and there is a standard in
life. If completed, the J Robinson camp can give an athlete the
foundation for the rest of their life. Ernie Larson, an author and
psychologist, made a statement that Robinson says encapsulates the J
Robinson Intensive Camp philosophy. Larson said, “What you see you
learn. What you learn you practice. What you practice you become and
what you become has consequences”.
Above all, that is what the staff at all the J Robinson camps is trying
to teach kids. It rings true for wrestling, for athletics and most
importantly it rings true for living life. If you are able to complete
those 28 days on the wrestling mat you learn this philosophy and
Robinson says, “It will be 28 days that change your life.”J Robinson
Intensive Wrestling Camps: “28 days that will change your life”