El Paso Parks & Rec opens first ever wrestling room

The El Paso Parks and Recreation department opened its first ever wrestling room on Monday.

The room is located inside the Chalio Acosta Sports Center in South-Central El Paso.

Hawk Scott, the program manager for Parks & Recreation, said the room was once a racketball court, but that it hadn’t been used in quite some time.

The idea to convert the space into a wrestling room was made after discussing the proposed plan with other officials with the Parks & Recreation department.

“There’s a lot of good wrestling athletes here in El Paso,” Scott said. “What we want to do is to be able to give them a place where they can come here and just have some mats to roll around in.”

Adrian Martinez is a team leader with Parks and Recreation, and he’s also a former wrestler.

Martinez will serve as a trainer for those who are new to the sport or those who are looking to hone their skills.

“So if some of them can come in here, get the extra time to really develop in the sport, we can really dish out some more talented wrestlers,” Martinez said.

Talented wrestlers are already taking advantage of the wrestling room, including Annette Enciso, an incoming senior from Hanks High School.

Hanks has won 6 straight team titles in wrestling, and Enciso is hoping their will be a 7th in her senior season.

Enciso says the wrestling room will help with her preparation.

“I was honestly very surprised because only the big clubs have something like this, but to have this kind of room it helps to work on the technique,” Enciso said.

“Honestly, I’m a little jealous. I wish I had something like this when I was in high school,” Martinez said. “It definitely would have come in handy, but now as an official, a coach and as a wrestler myself, I’m really happy to be able to mentor the next generation.”

For those interested in learning more about the wrestling room, you can call the Chalio Acosta Sports Center at (915) 534-0254.