Whitted Trained TX: The Sport Will Humble You
The Sport Will Humble You
Whitted Trained TX – Coach Donny
“Hard work perseveres – in life and in wrestling. Once you get a kid’s attention, his effort is nonnegotiable. With time, energy, and investment of the parents, the wrestler’s journey to success has begun,” asserts Coach Donavan Whitted of Whitted Trained in Arlington, Texas.
After arriving in 2010, Donavan had a goal of impacting the sports culture of Texas just as his father Donald Whitted had in founding the Harvey Twisters Club, which under Coach Quintroy Harrell produced 4-time Illinois high school state champions Joe & TJ Williams (Mt. Carmel) and David Douglas (Thornridge).
With son Donny, age ten at the time, and Coach Warren Smith Jr. with his son Warren Smith III, Whitted Trained began in Coach D’s garage and “it snowballed from there, with kids getting good at a fast rate and developing a passion for the sport.”
Within two years, the club placed Charlie Bergeson as well as Ivan and Roman Lopez in both Tulsa and RMN Nationals. Son Donny, now 16 and a defending Texas high school state champion, can be seen matside helping dad coach at youth events.
“Lil Donny” attests the club’s success to his father’s mantra that “the fight carries over. There are no easy points. Dad preaches hard work: ‘It’s not how good they are, but how hard they work.’ From Grandad Don, dad learned how to break down and dissect a match.”
Wrestling has begun to win over the Texas football-oriented sports culture. Don relates: “Wrestling goes hand-in-hand with football. It teaches young kids to be open and transparent. It helps them in sports and in life. In my youth, I did not realize how much wrestling had impacted the person I am today.”
“My approach to coaching is one of tough love,” states Donavan, who wears his passion on his sleeve before, during, and after each of his wrestler’s matches. “To be a great wrestler, it takes a certain level of discipline. Like my dad, I expect commitment and demand respect from an athlete in order for me to give my all as a coach.
“When a kid understands what we expect, he can compete with anyone in the country.” Coach D’s first national tournament champion, Warren Smith, “just finds a way to get it done, even though he jumps up a couple of weight classes every year. Now a 7th grader, he never ceases to amaze me.”
Other successful Whitted Trained wrestlers include: Ivan Lopez, “a multiple national placer who had to put in the work because wrestling did not come easily to him”; Roman Lopez, “a ‘manimal’ who drills like a college wrestler”; Eli Bierman, “who is very coachable, listening to everything I say”; and Charlie Bergeson, “who is one of the top wrestlers in the country because he has a will to win.”
The Bey brothers – Javin, Jair, and Shiloh – are “naturally gifted athletes with a high wrestling IQ.” All three have won the Freak Show. They come from the Chicago-area Harvey Twisters, “so they know our system and our approach. The foundation was already there.”
Donavan appreciates the Gutierrez family and RMN Events “wholeheartedly. They have embraced Whitted Trained and are essential to the growth of our club. Our parents absolutely love it. Our kids get what they need – quality competition – and it has become the fabric of what we do.”
Whitted club kids love the RMN opening ceremony: “It gets their attention and they can’t wait to get out there on the mat.” Donny, a 2019 Freak Show 18U Elite runner-up at 120, says: “I needed that finals loss to focus me on what I need to get better at before this year’s high school season.”
Whitted’s next goal is to “get Texas on the national wrestling map. We need to come together as coaches. We are one of the biggest states, with a talent pool of the best wrestlers in the country. We have ego and pride – wrestling builds that – but we need Division I college programs and club teams that wrestle year-round.”
Texas kids are making news on the national scene. Bo Nickal (Allen) won his 3rd NCAA title and the 2019 Dan Hodge Award while competing for Penn State. Brothers AJ and Anthony Ferrari attended Bergen Catholic (NJ) and Blair Academy; now back at Allen HS, AJ was acclaimed in May, 2019 by Flo as the nation’s #1 best pound-for-pound high school wrestler (committed to Oklahoma State).
Coach Donavan attributes the system he learned to Harvey Twisters Coach Quintroy Harrell: “He understands tactics as well as cause and effect. He taught me that my best defense was my offense.”
His dad Donald, an Illinois state finalist, “understood discipline, the philosophy of hard work, and that battling adversity makes you better. I learned to perform my best and to rise to the occasion with my back against the wall. Adversity is what makes you. I have yet to be broken.”
Son Donny refers to the life lesson that his coach dad has drilled into him: “The sport doesn’t love you. If you don’t do what you’re supposed to do, the sport will humble you.”