Sunnyside High School’s $2.7 million new wrestling facility that is under construction adjacent to its archaic wrestling room brings the power more in company with other elite programs nationally.
The wrestling-only facility that will be unveiled in the spring at Sunnyside exists at various wrestling high school powerhouses in Ohio, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Oklahoma — hotbeds of wrestling talent that feed into traditionally strong college programs such as Ohio State, Iowa and Iowa State, Penn State and Oklahoma State.
The late Arizona State coach Bobby Douglas generated a pipeline of talent from Sunnyside that included the likes of All-Americans Joe Romero, Eddie Ortiz, Eddie Urbano, Tommy Ortiz and Eric Larkin.
Where they are trained supreme, they (college recruiters) will come.
Where they are adequately developed and showcased, more opportunities beyond high school will arise.
Where they feel appreciated, they will thrive.
In recent years, four-time state champs from Sunnyside emerged as NCAA champions — Roman Bravo-Young (Penn State), Sergio Vega (Oklahoma State) and Audrey Jimenez (Lehigh). Bravo-Young competed in the 2024 Paris Olympics representing Mexico. Vega and Jimenez also have Olympic aspirations.
Sunnyside’s new wrestling facility, funded as part of the $120 million Sunnyside Unified School District bond override that voters passed last November, will put a crown on what is already royalty.
The program with 39 boys state championships and two girls titles has now truly arrived.
Think of it this way: all those high school football powers in Texas have stadiums and training facilities befitting of a small college.
Sunnyside wrestling will finally be in step with that in comparative fashion.
“This particular room is extremely important to us because these are generations of champions, not just state champions, but national champions, Olympians who have come through here,” said Sunnyside principal Stephanie Ponce, whose daughter Soleil wrestled with the Blue Devils. “They’ve grinded in a very small room with a lot of kids, and they’ve never complained.”
Ponce, Sunnyside Unified School District superintendent Jose Gastelum, Sunnyside athletic director Casey O’Brien, coach Anthony Leon and representatives from CORE Construction and SPS+ Architects spoke during Wednesday’s groundbreaking ceremony at the campus.
The entrance of the old wrestling room at Sunnyside was adjacent to where they addressed students and district guests.
The small room first became known as a sweatbox when the late Don Klostreich was getting the program off the ground more than 40 years ago. Training in the balmy room was a test of fortitude for Sunnyside wrestlers under Klostreich. The coaches who came after him (Richard Sanchez, Bobby DeBerry and Leon) have all stressed performance over luxury.
In recent years, the room could not hold all the trophies and medals that should have been displayed.
The advent of girls wrestling seven years ago, sparked by the dominance of Jimenez, made the room that much more confined in space.
Leon, girls coach William Olivas, the rest of the coaching staff and the wrestlers will finally have a facility that will be more than adequate for training and will allow the program to showcase itself appropriately.
“It’s an incredible honor to have the community and school district come together and support wrestling at this level,” Leon, who has led the Blue Devils to nine straight state titles and 10 overall, told AllSportsTucson.com. “When finished it will be the nicest facility in Arizona. The wrestlers, coaches and families are all so excited to move into the new facility.”
Presently, the program with the top wrestling facility in the state is Valiant Prepatory in Phoenix, which is a wrestling-centric private academy where the entire academic building is explicitly tailored around the sport, pairing its classrooms directly with an open-matted training floor.
High-level wrestlers gravitate to Valiant much like basketball prospects attend college prep schools geared toward basketball such as Hillcrest Academy in Phoenix.
Leon told the crowd that the 5,500 square-foot facility at Sunnyside will include four mats, a coach’s office and cardio and fitness rooms.
“But most importantly, it echoes the program’s history,” he noted. “It will tell the story of the program, which is most important to us for people to see when they walk inside.”
The boys and girls teams will train at nearby Sierra K-8 for the season this winter ahead of the unveiling of the new facility in the spring.
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