Inside and outside the wrestling room, the Greyhounds ended their regimen of summer workouts last week with what they’ve branded as the Jones County Intensive Camp.
“This is how we end our summer, with three hard days of practice,” Greyhounds head coach Adam Gillhouse said. “For us, it’s just about getting to worry about wrestling for a few days.”
During a span of three days last week, the Greyhounds got work in through five practices, and they were led by a familiar face from past offseason. For the third summer in a row, Jones County’s summer included its wrestlers working with Omi Acosta, head wrestling coach at Life University in Atlanta, an NAIA program.
During his time at Life University, Acosta has coached 10 NAIA national champions. Last week, he once again lent his expertise and knowledge to the Greyhounds along with a few of his own wrestlers as well.
“Any time you get a college coach in to work with the guys, it’s huge. Having him here is huge. He’s a guy I really respect a lot,” Gillhouse said. “We talk a lot about program building, and he’s one of the best I have been around. He really buys into our guys. The energy that he brings to our guys, it’s awesome.”
That high level of energy was evident during workouts, as the college coach’s intensity bounced off the walls of the wrestling room, helping the Greyhounds hone their wrestling craft and improve.
But last week went beyond hard work inside the wrestling room on the back edge of the JCHS campus. As part of last week’s team camp, Jones County wrestlers spent two nights in Gillhouse’s classroom on the JCHS campus as part of drilling down on and establishing core values and a foundation for the upcoming season.
Suffice it to say, the upcoming edition of the Greyhounds coming off a top-five finish in the state duals that will also have a sizeable rising ninth-grade class keyed in on team building during last week’s time together.
“It’s huge. Our incoming ninth graders spent lots of time last year in our wrestling room practicing with us,” Gillhouse said. “Each team has a different dynamic. This week, it’s a lot of finding out what we’ll be and who we’ll be as a team.”
