The Pride Wrestling Program was established in 2002. The new 2009-2010 Sparta Pride team consists of students from all Sparta Elementary Schools, Hilltop, Rev. Brown, St. Josephs and Immaculate Conception Schools. Students in grades K-8 are welcome to wrestle on our team. We are a feeder program for both Pope John and Sparta High Schools. We are a part of both the Passaic County League and the King of the Mat League. Aside from these leagues we also compete against many local teams in dual and tri meets. We also compete frequently in tournaments as a team.

The KOM JV Tournament for has been rescheduled for Feb 15th, Presidents Day. This Means if you did not register yet and want to you have time to do so.

Please go to the link section on our website for the NJ State Tournament information. Click on the USA Wrestling - NJ link for details. Many of our wrestlers will be attending the qualifiers and if you are interested ask the coaches which one they will be attending.

We want to take the time to thank all of you for allowing your children to participate in our program this season. How rewarding this season has been for all those involved. The first year the Sparta Pride had 83 members. Next year we are shooting for 100 and already have some strong commitments from many wrestlers in our community that were not on our team this season. We are meeting soon to start planning for next season and it will get better and better as we move forward. We have already been contacted by other leagues that have asked for our participation. THANK YOU!

The buzz is around town that there is a new wrestling club in Sparta. Coach Bob Stewart has announced that he has begun his Basement Boys practices. Visit his website at http://basementboyz.vpweb.com. Coach Stewart has launched a whole new element into his wrestlling club. You have to check this out. Working here will provide your wrestlers with that edge they need to win! Basement Boys is also available on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6zWQ2uy_7s. You can also search for his videos on Youtube by entering basementboyznj in teh search field. This is a great opportunity for state preperation and off season practices.

Thursday we will be heading to Hopatcong for a match. This event will be held just like a varsity match. The kids will get to run out and warm up to a song, a ref will keep score, and only one wrestlers hand will be raised. It will be one match at a time. This should be a great experience for our novice wrestlers and an excellent way to close out the season.

We have not won every match but have learned from each of them. We cannot measure success based upon wins and losses this season. How we should measure success is by how much our wrestlers have progressed throughout the season. If we measure it by this method then we are world champions. Every child in that room progressed immensely and the coaches along with the parents are all very proud. Our long list of coaches have done an outstanding job this season and we look to add to the list next season. When we look around and see the large group of young children on the team you can see that we have great potential in the future. Our goal is to keep the team together with both coaches and wretlers and continue to build from a solid foundation. GO SPARTA PRIDE!