Ken Chertow's Gold Medal Camp Partners with RMN
Learning to Live Fully: The Challenge of Life and Wrestling
Ken Chertow’s Wrestling Camp Coaching Philosophy
Shared with and edited by Bill X. Barron
Note: For over two decades, I have attended RMN Events nationwide. As a TV analyst for the Pac-12, BTN, and other networks, I meet and cover many RMN alumni who have built upon that broad experience to then excel at the highest levels of NCAA competition.
Ed Gutierrez’s vision is for RMN to provide a highly organized and fun series of events that creates unique memories for the kids and their families.
RMN’s tournament series continues to grow and thrive due to an innovative approach while the organization remains true to its roots as a family-led and faith-bred enterprise.
Over the years, RMN has partnered with our Gold Medal Camp in Denver, providing mats and a platform to share our unique experience with the national audience participating in their events. – KC
Wrestling is the ultimate preparation for living your life. Wrestlers must develop a winning mindset, a relentless work ethic, an unwavering focus, consistent discipline, and unceasing perseverance.
Whatever you want to be in life, do it first by being a wrestler. Wrestlers are role models whose sense of responsibility guides them to make sound, well thought-out choices.
When I went off to college, my mother inspired me with a handwritten note: “Don’t settle for being good … when you dream of being great.” I posted it on my dorm room wall as a daily motivator.
Going from good to great involves an unwavering commitment despite roadblocks, detours, and defeats. Work begins for real when you align a sense of purpose with your unexplored potential.
Think positively. Believe in yourself. Be tough when you are tired. Be a leader, not a follower.
In Gold Medal Camp Training, wrestlers progress through layers of instruction, mature through our investment in the whole person, graduate to higher levels of technique, and finally prepare themselves to meet the intensity of the moment.
I have personally designed the Gold Medal Camp System so that you will learn and retain as much as possible. Through a carefully planned sequence of instruction, unique drills, and review sessions, you will learn the techniques necessary to become a champion.
Central to our GMTC philosophy: we teach to each individual’s potential. Through our emphasis on positivity, we inspire athletes and coaches to maximize the positive influence on their sport, families, and community. Our wrestlers return year after year and become one large extended family.
At camp, we teach mindset through “I am” statements: “I am a champion.” “I am a warrior.” “I am tireless.” Wrestlers learn to embrace the demanding work of a champion and how to effectively maintain an aggressive style while having fun and striving to be winners in all aspects of their lives.
The Future Champions Camp motto is “Work Hard and Have Fun on Your Way to #1,” and the kids do just that. For our youth campers, we welcome parents to participate and learn alongside their kids. At the next level, we provide a more intense kids' training camp for ages 9-12.
GMTC has pioneered small group choice opportunities for personalized instruction. This system allows wrestlers and coaches to select from a total of twelve sections offered by different clinicians: three each on the feet, top, and bottom, as well as freestyle / Greco.
Throughout the total camp experience, we stress the positive. To keep it interesting, we utilize the talents of our outstanding coaching staff who build upon their diverse skills and experiences.
We hire and mentor college kids at camp, preparing them to inspire and motivate the next generation. Coaching is a relationship; from that foundation, you can develop success stories on the mat through which individuals establish how they will live their lives.
Our clinicians are hired not for a certain skill set but for a definite mindset. Their primary focus is on the kids, not to create an end product but to shape a life process. We want them to openly share their enthusiasm while actively inspiring energy and passion in the pursuit of greatness.
Passion is not a quality with which you are born; it is developed through the experience of positivity. As young people develop and thrive, we emphasize the cerebral approach and celebrate Academic All-Americans, helping them maximize what they learn by applying appropriate changes in technique.
In everyday life, Clark Kent is an average person who does not make waves. Yet like Kent, we all have the capacity to become a superhero who rises to the moment. Our two-week Super Gold Medal Training Camp is the building block for every wrestler who wants to be Superman.
There are so many ways to be great – Olympic medalists and world champions Helen Maroulis, David Taylor, and Zain Retherford all attended the Gold Medal Camp, but each has a unique wrestling style.
In the 2016 Olympics in Rio, Helen became the USA’s first female wrestling gold medalist. In doing so, she defeated one of the most dominant women wrestlers of all time, Japan’s Saori Yoshida, a 3-time Olympic gold medalist and 13-time world champion.
At Penn State, David was a 2-time NCAA Champion and 4-time finalist before earning Olympic gold in 2020. He has perfected an unbeatable ankle pick series in addition to a deep arsenal of “magic moves” that make him virtually unstoppable.
One of my most dedicated, intense, and inspiring students, Zain is a 2022 World Silver Medalist who was an undefeated 3-time NCAA Champion over his final three years at PSU while earning two Dan Hodge Trophies.
As a youth, Zain grew up learning at both my Home Training Center and Super Gold Summer Camp. Now, I encourage young wrestlers to embrace Zain’s all-out, aggressive style: his intense pursuit corners those whom he wrestles, leaving them no escape.
On the other hand, a wrestler such as Jordan Burroughs succeeds because he has the discipline to maintain his lower level, utilizing that position – and body fakes – to attack as well as set up his rapid reshot.
But not every wrestler can master Burroughs’ perfectly timed attacks, John Smith’s change-of-direction low single strategy, or Kyle Dake’s patience in finding the right opening.
By the time I was in the 11th grade, I had learned much of what I had to do – and how I had to do it – in order to excel at the next level.
Coaches need to expose their wrestlers to every style until each unleashes the technique that best meshes with his or her skills, personality, experience, and individual style.
Our primary goal is to have kids fall in love with wrestling. Whether we coach youth, high school, or an elite college team like Penn State, we must be creative. Ultimately, our challenge is to get the most out of everyone yet keep it fun.
As a coach, you must discover not only which techniques uniquely belong to each wrestler but also what motivates this young person to take ownership for his or her development and success.
To be most effective, a coach has the responsibility to balance an emphasis on steady improvement and a focus on sustained success with the need to establish a positive and supportive environment.
Be real with your wrestlers. Get to the heart of what they are thinking; know who they are as a person. Teach them to energize the personal passion within that will prepare them to take on any challenge.
Teaching the art of wrestling is what I continue to love. It is an art, not a science.
My life’s work has made it possible for many athletes to fulfill their highest potential and, when faced with adversity, they have had the determination to respond successfully to any degree of difficulty.
Though my legacy is long yet to be fulfilled, as a teacher I continue to value the opportunity to inspire confidence and motivate the pursuit of excellence.
If I were to leave a legacy, it would be as a teacher: our sport of wrestling is special because there are so many individual ways to become a successful wrestler and person.
Ken Chertow, Gold Medal Training Camp System: Strive to Excel
Weekend Warrior Camps: KenChertow.com
PURE Peak Performance Nutrition: KenChertowNutrition.com
Editor’s Note: Coach Chertow has a superb memory for wrestlers and coaches. It had been several years since we had seen one another, but when Ken was giving a clinic at the 2022 Freak Show in Vegas, he immediately identified the year (1990), the host state (West Virginia), and the top wrestler (George Lewis) that I had brought to his Gold Medal Training Camp.
George built upon what he learned at Ken’s camp to become a 3-time Tennessee State Champion and High School All-American. – bxb, RMN Head Official