All the schools in our wrestling league, San Diego Section Western League, have a designated wrestling room(s) that can fit at least two 40x40 mats. The room we share with the dance/cheer squad can't even fix one 40x40 mat. As a junior at Scripps Ranch High School, it frustrates me, my teammates, and the coaches when we have to spend time rolling the mats out, cleaning them, and moving dance stuff in order to start practice, instead of just walking into a room and getting right into practicing. It takes 20-30 minutes to set up and put up our mats, and that is 20-30 minutes of waste time that we could have worked on technique and drills.

For the past 3 YEARS, our varsity team(8 kids) has sent 6 or 7 wrestlers to the MASTERS tournament. Instead of filling the full 14 weight class that many school class including multiple people behind the varsity weight class, we are stuck with 8 weight class with maybe 1 person behind each varsity wrestler. Every good wrestling school in San Diego has a wrestling room as well as a youth program. It is very hard to start a youth program without a designated wrestling room.

The many pros of having a room are:

• Having a sense of belonging. Having a room where we can put up team pictures of the past and our plaque of Master placers/State qualifiers/State Finalist/State Champions would show our new wrestlers what we can and will accomplish.
• Not having to worry about time. Due to the fact that some of our wrestlers can't drive or be picked up, they sit up by the dance room trying to do homework where it can reach up to 90 degrees.
• Having a bigger space instead of being clustered up. Even though we only have 8-16 kids, it is impossible to go an entire practice without bumping into someone and/or something. Many of our wrestlers have broken valuable items and/or put a hole in one of the mirrors that dance use because there isn't enough space for us.
• Being able to reduce the percentage of fungi and other bacteria that can grow. The moisture that is trapped in rolled-up mats causes an increase in the growth of fungus and bacteria even when we clean our mats before and after practice every day.
• Being able to have our own wrestling room would give us a place to help advance the wrestling community in Scripps Ranch by being able to start a youth program that we have wanted to have for 2 years now. This room would not only help impact our current wrestlers but our future wrestlers and parents that want to put their children(s) in a martial art that will help build great traits that every parent wants their kid to have.