“If you’re too tough for basketball, you come down to wrestling,” he said during a Thursday meeting of the Central Michigan Wrestling School Youth Hammer Club.

Freier is one of almost 20 youth wrestlers who spend their Tuesday and Thursday evenings learning new wrestling techniques and improving on familiar moves in the new Central Michigan University Events Center practice room.

The kids, who range from 7 to 11 years old, are taught by volunteer assistant coach Paul Lyon, who finished runner-up at the California Community College Championships in 2007. He wrestled for Cerritos College as the starting 133-pounder.

“We’re trying to build a good youth program so they can go wrestle well in high school, and then one day, maybe they can wrestle for us,” Lyon said.

The youth club was created in 2009 and has nearly doubled in attendance in its second year.

“We have 15 or 20 kids this year, and only around 10 or so last year,” Lyon said. “People seem to enjoy it, and we’re getting a better following this year.”

Each session is set up similarly to the CMU wrestling team’s practices, starting with a warm-up and branching off into pairs to put the kids' new moves to work.

Lyon is the primary coach of the program, with visits from CMU wrestling head coach Tom Borrelli and assistant coach Mark DiSalvo from time to time. Many of the kids' parents were wrestlers, and often give them pointers during practice.

“I like the camp because (the kids) get more for their time and Paul keeps them from getting off task,” said Mike Lalande, whose stepson, Blayze Courtney, is in his first year with the CMU program.

Though the club hasn’t had much connection with the CMU wrestling team, it hopes to see more of the varsity wrestlers participate as the program expands.

“We’d like to get more wrestlers involved, but it’s kind of hard when they have practice right before the club meets,” Lyon said.

Even without their physical presence in the practice room, some of the kids are close followers of the varsity wrestlers.

“I usually watch them on TV or see them in the newspaper,” Freier said. “Last year, I saw a few matches and they were pretty good. Now they’re kind of slipping, but they’ll get back up.”

Frier was quick to say his favorite wrestler was Florida junior Scotti Sentes, indicating Sentes' speed and strength as his key attributes.

While some of the kids were able to attend the dual-meets against the University of Michigan and Old Dominion University, others said that they weren’t able to get to many CMU matches because of scheduling conflicts with other weekend tournaments.

Outside of the club, many of the wrestlers compete in leagues around Mount Pleasant, including the Michigan Youth Wrestling Association and the North Eastern Michigan Wrestling Association.

“It’s one of the tougher clubs I’ve been to, and probably the toughest,” Freier said. “You get stronger, you get faster, you get better at techniques and you learn new ones.”

The six-month program will finish in March with the end of the wrestling season.