When it comes to Mercer County wrestling, a lower level void has hindered high school programs for years.
While it is important to focus on any sport year-round to achieve state-wide success, that is especially the case in wrestling. Look at the state champions atop the podium in Atlantic City each March, and pretty much every one of them has been a year-round wrestler from the time they were in grade school.
While some county wrestlers join clubs to stay sharp throughout the year, they always have a lot of ground to cover against their opponents. Most of the county grapplers have been November-to-February participants because the county lacked a year-round facility.
Danny Flounders, a two-time All-American at The College of New Jersey and former Steinert assistant, saw the result of that all too well since re-locating to Mercer. The Hamilton resident decided to do something about it and opened the All Heart Wrestling Academy in Hamilton.
“If you’re a wrestler and you don’t go year-round, you’re behind the eight ball,” he said. “Since I graduated I’ve settled in Mercer County, and I want to see this county do well in wrestling. You don’t have to train with me year round. You can go to any club you want, but you need to do it.”
The operation also offers courses in martial arts and bully prevention. But in the big picture, Flounders is living out his dream of providing county wrestlers with a nearby training option.
“It’s definitely one large step for Steinert and one giant leap for Mercer County wrestling,” Steinert coach Adam Jankos said.
The rest of Mercer’s coaches, many of whom know Flounders well, share Jankos’s thoughts. Jankos, Robbinsville’s Rich Gildner and Princeton’s Rashone Johnson wrestled with Flounders at TCNJ. In fact, Flounders worked extensively with Gildner’s son Tyler and his Robbinsville teammate Chris Tan, who were both state-place winners last year.
He also trains Steinert’s Brandon Cray, a 2014 state place-winner as a sophomore. According to the Spartan, Flounders is a guy you want to learn from. Cray said Flounders’s mental toughness and intensity make him an ideal coach.
“I think what he’s doing with the club is good,” he said. “If you want to get better, you gotta do the extra. And the extra is now right here in our own backyard. We used to have to go an hour away, now it’s right here. The more [wrestlers] that go, the better Mercer will be. They just have to want to do it.”
Another Cray played a big part in bringing All Heart to Hamilton. Cray’s father, Todd Cray—a standout Nottingham wrestler in the late 1980s—encouraged Flounders to open the facility.
They met when he worked at Daddis Martial Arts in Egg Harbor Township, providing tutelage for several wrestlers, including Cray. Opening a local facility was always a dream of Todd Cray’s, but he said he didn’t have the credentials to do so. After speaking with Flounders and realizing they shared a mindset, the two came to an agreement.
“When I wrestling, I was going to a wrestling club an hour away, and now we’re sitting here in 2015 and having to do the same thing,” he said. “You have your one or two kids on each team where the parents will make the ride. The problem is the other kids that are left behind, that don’t have that opportunity.”
Ironically, Flounders is a guy who never had the luxury of being a year-round wrestler as a youth, which made him understand just how important it is. A product of Shore Conference wrestling, he was a region champion for Red Bank High School but never made much noise at states.
“I never wrestled before high school,” he said. “I never knew what wrestling was. I finally won regions by my third year because I started going to clubs year round.”
By continuing to work, Flounders blossomed at TCNJ. He was a three-time Metro Conference champion and Division III national qualifier, and he reached the national finals in 2001 at 133 pounds.
After graduation in 2002, he began working in mixed martial arts, which led to him working with Cray, Tan and Gildner in wrestling. Once Daddis moved its operation from Hamilton, Flounders decided to open All Heart.
He also has a fulltime job with Ritchie & Paige Distributors, but Flounders has put countless hours into getting All Heart ready to go. He opened for business on Dec. 1 and immediately started with 10 wrestlers who already knew of him. That number doubled by early January, despite the fact Hamilton PAL wrestling is in the heart of its season, which means a lot of the potential students are on hold until that season is over.
Flounders’s reason for opening the facility goes well beyond making money.
“I see that Hamilton baseball is huge,” he said. “All those kids play year-round. They’re working in the winter, playing in travel leagues. They never stop. It’s the same thing with wrestling. You have to train hardcore.”
Flounders began getting the word out early, getting in touch with all of the Mercer coaches and showing up at as many dual meets as possible. Nottingham coach Jason Marasco confirmed it was much-needed in the county.
“There have been people who have tried it before, but they weren’t successful,” Flounders said. “The only reason I started it is because I really have the confidence I can do it.”
He should be confident, considering his track record with the state place-winners. They were guys who already had experience, so Flounders is especially eager to mold wrestlers from an early age.
“I want to build the youth wrestling and build them up from six to high school,” he said. “If I can get my hands on these kids for a lot of years, you can teach them a lot of stuff.”
He is already doing that with several youngsters. One example is Hamilton 6-year-old Ryan “Bubba” Gavrish, whose parents met Flounders when Ryan was with the Robbinsville Wrestling Association.
“He has done so much for Bubba,” said Gavrish’s dad, Matt. “His confidence has improved. He is actually thinking about each move and executing them correctly. Most importantly, he wants to practice and wrestle every day. I think that is all due to Dan’s support and knowledge of the sport.”
For the Gavrish family, All Heart was made to order as they have their own guru in their own backyard. Matt Gavrish said Flounders’s philosophy is perfect for young wrestlers—he drills fundamentals and technique and, once they’re perfected, builds on them.
“There are some great clubs out there, but an hour away and a lot of people can’t commit to them between work and school,” he said. “Coach Dan even came to a match on his own time to watch some of the kids (he works with). He keeps notes on every wrestler and makes the kids write the moves they learned in their own notebooks. We would love to keep Coach Dan all to ourselves but we know he will be an unbelievable asset to Mercer County wrestlers.”
Also attending All Heart are the two young sons of Steinert assistant coach Doug Cooper, who has long been involved with youth wrestling.
“Dan Flounders is becoming a great asset to Mercer County wrestling,” Cooper said. “His unique blend of battle toughness and precision technique is unprecedented in this area. He is consistently accessible at many of our youth and middle school and high school events within the county.”
Cooper’s son Keon, a Steinert freshman who wrestles for the JV team, has found what he is looking for in Flounders.
“My dad has taken me to a few wrestling clubs, but most of them focus on technique and conditioning,” Keon said. “Coach Dan is different because he’s one of the only ones who preaches being brutally tough. He is always on me about being mentally and physically tough. He says that wrestling is 90 percent mental and that you decide whether you are going to win or lose before you even step foot on the mat.”
The All Heart facility has a main floor that is 1,500 square feet, along with a 1,500 square-foot basement. The basement is not yet completed, but Flounders envisions wall to wall wrestling on the first floor and “a hard-core weight facility” for the high school kids in the basement.
Flounders not only teaches physical moves, but with a master’s degree in counseling he places a strong emphasis on sports psychology to build confidence, as Keon Cooper pointed out.
“He’s got the psychology background to help wrestlers be the best they can be, whether that’s winning 15 matches, winning counties or winning the state championship,” Todd Cray said. “When he has time he just talks to the kid to find out what each kid needs. You can look at every kid out there, they need something different.”
Jankos agreed.
“He incorporates mental preparation and mental toughness into his classes,” he said. “This is a component that most Mercer County wrestlers do not receive during the off-season when they are away from their high school coaches.”
Six Spartans currently train with Flounders, who offers group lessons for ages kindergarten through high school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and gives private lessons the rest of the week.
Flounders sees Mercer County as an area ready to take off in wrestling, as seen in increased success in the states over the past decade.
“It’s been growing the last 10 years,” he said. “More than ever you have youth programs and kids traveling outside the county to go to other clubs. They’ve had success going to those clubs, they just haven’t had the option locally.”
The timing, he added, is perfect.
“I had a great opportunity to get that spot, it’s a nice store front, it’s easy to get to,” he said. “I think more kids want to do this. I’m just all for wrestling. If you’re going to a club now, God bless you. It’s important to go to a club. I just want other kids to have an option close to home. My goal is to make Mercer County wrestling relevant.”
All Heart Wrestling Academy is located at 1280 Route 33, Hamilton. For more information, visit allheartacademy.com.
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