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Welll it’s official and been announced now. Cody Chittum is now ENROLLED at Cleveland and eligible to wrestle the rest of this season. It Is going to be fun seeing the number one 145p kid in the country at the AAA state tournaments. Welcome back to TN High School wrestling Cody!

HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS New wrestling facility, other improvements planned for Arlington High By Michael Waddell, Special to the Daily MemphianPublished: January 03, 2021 4:00 AM CT A rendering of the new wrestling facility at Arlington High School. Construction of the 14,500 square-foot facility will begin in early 2021. (Renaissance Group Architects) Following success in recent years on the state, regional and local levels, Arlington High’s wrestling squads will be rewarded next fall with a new home facility. Construction will begin on the $3.9 million building early next year. “I really think it’s going to turn a lot of heads when it gets built,” Jonathan Simpson, Arlington’s head wrestling coach, said. “For the school, it’s going to be on par with the exceptional facilities that they’ve been building, and I personally believe it’s going to be the top-of-the-line facility in West Tennessee.” His Arlington squads have only lost two Division I matches to local opponents over the past six years, and the program has produced multiple state medalists including two state champions and a state runner-up. Wrestling, in terms of district, regional and state championships/titles, is the top-performing sport at AHS, but wrestling matches have been relegated to a small gym in the back of the high school. Lakeland High School construction on track for fall 2022 opening “We’re moving into that echelon of the schools that are willing to provide not only athletic opportunities for our students but are also giving our sports programs the facilities to provide excellence for those student-athletes,” said Simpson. “Since I’ve been at Arlington, we have not had our own place to work out. Now, we’ll have an extremely nice facility to call home where we can continue to build tradition.” He looks forward to seeing the school’s various banners and awards decorating the walls of the new facility. “For us, a big hurdle is keeping the kids in our area, so they don’t go to a variety of other private schools,” said Simpson. “In a lot of cases, that comes down to facilities.” Arlington also has a youth wrestling program for K-8 students, who will also use the new facility. “Coach Simpson, his staff and our athletes have built a wrestling program that’s been recognized statewide for its achievements,” Jeff Mayo, Arlington Community Schools superintendent, said. “This new facility will give our athletes even more opportunities to host local and statewide competitions, a chance to build their skills to remain competitive for potential scholarships and help recruit future Tigers through the Arlington Wrestling feeder program.” Earlier this month the Arlington Planning Commission approved the site plan for general contractor Chris Woods Construction, and they hope to start work by Feb. 1, according to project manager Grant Mills. “The objective is to have substantial completion done by August before school starts,” said Mills. Lakeland-based Renaissance Group Architects designed the facility, which will measure close to 14,500 square feet and attach to the existing school. In addition to seating for 300, the addition will have a gymnasium, locker rooms, coach’s offices, weight rooms and lobby area. A new parking lot will add 127 spaces on the southwest side of the school. The project also includes a new 1,150-square-foot soccer concessions and restroom facility on the west side of the soccer field, replacing an existing small ticket booth/concession stand. “After our initial planning, we learned through the architect that we could do a suite of projects at a cheaper cost, so that’s why we expanded it to include these other items as well,” Mayo said. ACS wants to make sure the project reaches more than just one set of students by benefiting both male and female sports. In recent years, the school’s dance and cheer teams have sometimes used the rotunda in the middle of the school for practices. “In addition to wrestling, the new facility will be utilized by the cheer and dance teams when it’s not in use, and with the project adding a new concession stand and restrooms at the soccer complex, we’re making sure that both male and female soccer athletes are seeing the benefits as well,” Mayo said. Mills sees minimal preliminary site work necessary to get construction underway. “It’s nothing like what the school’s new indoor training facility required, where we had to install 11-foot-tall concrete stem walls and 27,000 yards of dirt to fill that in,” he said. Arlington High debuts new indoor athletic practice facility Arlington High’s new $4 million indoor athletic training facility (also built by Chris Woods) that opened in October and the planned wrestling facility are part of the district’s five-year capital improvement blueprint. Chris Woods is currently building a similar wrestling facility as part of the new Lakeland Preparatory high school wing, which should open by the fall of 2022. There also are expected to build a new replacement gymnasium for Collierville Elementary.HIGHOOLRESTLING JEFAHAN SIMPSON CHRIS WOODS CONSTRUCTION Michael Waddell Michael Waddell is a native Memphian with more than 20 years of professional writing and editorial experience, working most recently with The Daily News and High Ground News.

I'm tired of the politics on here. Usually I just laugh with and at you, Willie but your comments should never been put on a high school sports page. No matter which side you are on. Put that kind of thing on UTUBE or something. Like everyone else just voicing my opinion, and I know the "old saying"! HaHa I'm done talking on this subject now.

The schools all having different policies is 100% the fault of TSSAA. Their mission statement includes language inferring that they provide clear leadership and ensure fairness, for which they charge a membership fee... their response to the pandemic was "follow your local authority's guidelines", rather than set parameters (clear and fair leadership would have been to set a standard policy). Of course, you would have had some schools more restricted (by local mandates) than others, but the refusal by TSSAA to even assess/apply any restrictions opened the door for schools not affected by local guidelines to do whatever, and some took full advantage. You can't complain about schools not following TSSAA mandates when there were none.

I wont dispute what you're saying about Marion. I did watch them in person at the Tyner game though so I know something of what talent they might have. If you read any of my preseason posts I sang the praises of our up and coming qb and how talented he was. I also said he would be fine replacing Swafford and he clearly was. I say that to say this. Meigs in 21 season will have athletes of our current qbs caliber all over the field. Lineman like #57 Malachai Hayden and #60 Hunter Brown don't come around often but if we replace them with anything close to what we had just in the other lineman we will be absolutely fine. The one thing I hoped to be able to do on coacht since I joined is build a reputation that would sway readers to believe what I say about Meigs to be the truth or at the very least maybe make people believe my opinions aren't just of a homer. I try to at the very least be honest . If I'm not believable now I probably never will be lol. That being said I think Meigs will do OK replacing what lineman we lost and linebackers. If #8 Ben Smith gets a chance at running back and manages to get just a tad more of field awareness and field vision he could possibly be one of the best runners we have seen. Ofcourse thats speculation but he is definitely the kind of athlete that could do it.