Valiant finds stability, Christmas spirit & national champions
The Valiant College Prep wrestling program has clearly established itself on the national wrestling scene after a Christmas in July type performance in Fargo, N.D.
While that’s all well and good as far as producing champions, the most important aspect of it is the fact that the program is finally established.
The brainchild of one of Arizona’s all-time best wrestlers, Eric Larkin, has continued to progress after years of ironing out all of the aspects of opening a school from scratch and all that goes along with it.
Larkin is never one to rest, as anyone who competed against the Sunnyside and Arizona State product can attest, but he can finally maybe, just maybe, relish in the fact that his vision for Valiant is finally in an outstanding position on the mat and off.
“It feels pretty good to get to this point,” said Larkin, who is a co-founder at Valiant. “We are nowhere near the level we know we can reach but looking at where we started to where are at now and it feels like we are in a stable, outstanding position going forward.
“I feel like I finally have my head above water.”
Valiant began in 2018, but Larkin’s idea of wrestling a national schedule and competing against national programs like Blair Academy in New Jersey, St. Edward in Ohio and Wyoming Seminary in Pennsylvania when he was coaching at Seton Catholic in the early 2010s.
He has wanted to take the best wrestlers in Arizona and give them a chance to compete against the nation’s best. The exposure to national-based schedule leads to growth that happens quicker than competing the regular AIA-sanctioned schedule.
And the dividends have started to come through.
The program returned from the National Championships in Fargo, competing in Greco and freestyle disciplines, with 10 All-Americans including five championship plaques known as stop signs.
But there is no stopping Valiant now.
“It was a great performance, a mindset that we had going in,” Valiant coach Angel Cejudo said. “The thing is we could have done better, and some of the kids know that, but it was a great team effort.”
It is believed to be third most All-Americans in one year from one school following behind Oak Park-River Forest and Wyoming Seminary.
Cejudo, a four-time state champion at Maryvale, said Larkin has done an amazing job of putting everything together, from getting accreditation, to finding a place to call home on Phoenix (after starting out in a strip mall), to fund-raising, to filling out a schedule, getting Valiant to this point.
“He didn’t let any of that stuff filter down to the wrestling room,” he said. “He just let me worry about the wrestling side of things, and what was going on in the room to take advantage of my strengths while he took care of everything else and put in this position.
“Hopefully, he can take a step back and look at all that has been accomplished, but he is always moving toward another goal or level for us.”
The Valiant wrestlers reached that level at Fargo, after a strong regular season, by taking a festive-type approach toward the big event.
The mindset coach talked to them about how about everyone associates Christmas with being in a festive, easy-going, and good mood. So why not have a Christmas in July.
It led to a Christmas tree being put up in the wrestling room and everyone producing their Christmas list of goals for Fargo.
It worked as Valiant, which has in-person classrooms, current or former wrestlers (Casteel’s Mykey Ramos) accounted for all of the Arizona competitors who achieved All-American status (the top eight) in one of the largest and most difficult events of the wrestling calendar.
“We all went up with the expectation of winning it,” senior gray shirt Davian Guanajuato said. “We wrestled hard and came back with a lot of hardware and more experience.”
Kyler Larkin, Adrian Meza, who also placed fifth in Greco, and Guanajuato all won individual titles with Kyler Larkin being named Outstanding Wrestlers after pulling off some upsets and even trended nationally on Twitter while the mat side crowd surrounding his matches kept getting bigger and bigger.
“It was like any other tournament, at least that’s the way I tried to approach it,” said the younger Larkin, who Christmas list not only included Outstanding Wrestler but winning each match convincingly, which he ended up doing.
“I mean, we wrestle against high-level competition every day in practice, so we weren’t going to see anyone that was lot better up there.”
The other All-Americans were Ben Alainis (eighth), Christian Castillo (runner-up), Isaias Jimenez (seventh), Emilio Ysaguire (runner-up), Daniel Guanajuato (fifth)and Karlee Brooks (seventh). Valiant might have had a few more All-Americans, but miscommunication led to some competitors missing their weigh-in time.
It just so goes to show no matter how far the program has come there is more work to done.
And no one has any problem with it.
“It all starts with the work we do in the room every day,” the elder Larkin said. “We feel like there is always something we can get better at, and we get after it pretty good. As much as we liked the results, we know there is still more for use out there to accomplish.”