Viking wrestlers are focus of MTV documentary.

The trip home from the Tacoma Dome last weekend was surely a momentous one for Lake Stevens High School’s wrestling team. With trophy in hand and the MTV film crew wrapping up their taping of the team, the Berserkers were definitely ending the season on top.

The Vikes won their fourth state championship in five years and still have a lot to look forward to with an upcoming MTV documentary being filmed during the last two and half months.

What happens now?
“It will take about six weeks or so after the season is over to put all the footage together and then they will present it to MTV,” Coach Brent Barnes said. “What MTV does with it is anyone’s guess. Hopefully, we can have a premiere here in the community and raise a little money for the wrestling team.”

Executive Producer and local Hollywood star Chris Pratt is hoping for the same thing.

“We would like to make a big premiere, kind of red carpet style. These kids deserve it and it’s going to be really fun. We can give the school and program money but we can’t pay the kids,” Pratt said. “That is already in the works and already in the plan. We plan to do a giant gala. We really want to show our gratitude to these boys because they have had cameras in their face.”

It has certainly been an amazing year for the wrestlers and coming home with the title has only solidified the reasons they train to their full potential and allowed cameras to follow them around during the season.

Their hope is that others will see what they do everyday and understand the reasons they do it.
“I believe that the Lake Stevens Wrestling team will interest MTV viewers because we live such a different lifestyle and go through things that people wouldn’t even think possible, but at the same time we are just normal kids trying to live ordinary lives while we strive for greatness on the mat,” sophomore wrestler Eric Soler said.

In the end, the documentary will at least give viewers an unprecedented look at the life of a high school wrestler and the coach that inspires them to be their best.

“I hope the message to the viewers of this program will help them understand the sport of wrestling better, not just the rules and how to score points but the sacrifices and the emotional aspect of it because that’s what I believe really makes the sport so great and rewarding” Soler said. “To understand it you really have to spend hours and hours around it and even then you will never understand it fully until you compete and train for years and years, so I just hope that this documentary will give the viewers a better understanding of this great sport that so few people understand.”

Barnes concurs with Soler with what he would like the world to see in his team.

“A view of normal kids doing something that is pretty hard and pretty special and how much work, emotion and toil it takes,” he said. “I would like it also to show how coaches work with kids and what goes into trying to help some of these young guys become men.”

As far as Pratt is concerned, he wants people to see how this sport of wrestling becomes a part of you and how it can affect the person you become.

“I hope it’s moving, inspirational and powerful,” Pratt said.

The documentary air date has not been scheduled but the Lake Stevens Journal will inform the public as soon as a date has been set.



 

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