The summer heat is so sweltering that your walls are sweating as much as you are. It’s not exactly the perfect time to go to the Recreation Athletic Facility and watch or even participate in a little wrestling action . But that is exactly what the Iowa State wrestlers and coaches are doing, spending time in the virtual sauna that is the wrestling room.

“I don’t know too many wrestling rooms that have air conditioning and ours definitely doesn’t,” Thom Ortiz, assistant coach, said.

The heat and sauna-esque conditions haven’t put a damper on the camps or the number of youths that are participating this year.

“We have 30 kids [participating] in the eight-day training camp this year; last year we had 20,” Ortiz said. “We want to try and double it every year. We’re a little short this year.

“The success of the camp relates to the success of the team,” Ortiz said.

The participants not only learn new techniques, but they also get to meet the legends of the sport. Bill Smith, the 1952 Olympic Champion and two-time NCAA Champion for Iowa’s Teachers College, now the University of Northern Iowa, made a guest appearance along with Ames’ Kevin Jackson and last year’s runner-up at heavyweight, UNI’s Justin Greenlee.

Cyclone fans will get a closer look at Greenlee next year as ISU’s volunteer coach. “He’ll help out our heavyweights quite a bit,” Ortiz said.

Not only do the participants get to see legends, they also get to wrestle with current ISU varsity wrestlers. Matt Muhlvihill, Brad Horton and Sirrell Gissendanner work the afternoon session. “We rotate them off,” Ortiz said.

One good use of the camp is the recruiting aspect. “We do use it for recruiting,” Ortiz said. “There’s a couple kids that we’re looking at here.”

The campers will also get a chance to look at ISU through a student’s eye. “Even if [the kids] don’t wrestle at ISU, they have a first hand look at the campus,” Ortiz said. “They’re getting an academic part that they probably don’t get at other camps.”

For the varsity wrestlers this is a great opportunity to learn the moves more thoroughly.

“When you teach a move to a kid, you have to totally learn the move and when you really know then you can teach it to them,” Muhlvihill said.

“It also motivates us for the season coming up,” Gissendanner added. “The kids are looking to us to teach them.”

Head Coach Bobby Douglas has been running the camps but is in Colorado Springs at the Olympic Training Camp.

“We’re getting guys in here so that they’re not looking up to Iowa,” Horton said.

The camp started last Sunday and runs until this Sunday.