Meet Eric
Originally from Glassboro, New Jersey, Eric has been a member of the Harlem community since 2011. “I married into Harlem. So my wife was already living here. She'd been living in New York City for a while…. And I love it here. I love Harlem… I'm a South Jersey boy… My wife [calls it] country. I fought that for a while. We were only 20 minutes outside of Philly, but looking back, it's country. I did live next to a peach orchard but it was cool,” he laughs. “So being here is like, 'Oh, I could experience the city in my forties as opposed to my… [running] around energy days.'” Adjusting to the fast pace of New York City was the biggest adjustment for him but over time he created roots in Harlem through frequenting local businesses, especially coffee shops and restaurants like the Oma, Common Good Harlem, The Fox, Famous Fish, and Ponty Bistro. Eric also makes an effort to find galleries and street fairs and explores the city during morning walks. He believes if you put yourself out there, “[The city has] something for everyone somewhere.”
A major source of community for him is through his coaching for the Harlem Jets, “I coach young people to wrestle…. I meet all the families. I meet all their friends. I meet all the people…. I coach for the Harlem Jets Wrestling Club.... We're a smaller part of a larger organization, the Harlem Jets, who do [several sports]... So they're in the business of making student athletes, giving them opportunities to get a better education somewhere else, through sports, through athletics… You come into our place… we're going to make an athlete, and then we're also going to get you into school… Whether it's boarding school, whether it's better school here in New York… or just navigating this crazy New York City school system where half the schools are good and half the schools are bad. It's just challenging for anybody. So we try to help with all that.” Eric started wrestling when he was six years old, “Wrestling is what I gravitated to…. [I] was able to get a division one scholarship [at Wilkes University].” He says, “I don't think there's another sport on the planet that gives you almost all of your life lessons in about the span of a season… Learning how to deal with hardship… Learning how to make friends… Dealing with authority early, that is not your parents… [Learning] about hard work [and] commitment. No other sport on the planet does it as well.” He has been a coach since 1996 and has been coaching with the Harlem Jets for about 14 years. When he and his wife got engaged and he prepared to move to New York, he had to close his wrestling club in New Jersey. As he was looking for a way to continue coaching, his wife found out about the Harlem Jets Wrestling Club and he got involved, “I would say that it is part of who I am and part of my… connection with Harlem in general.”
“I don’t think there’s another sport on the planet that gives you almost all of your life lessons in about the span of a season… Learning how to deal with hardship… Learning how to make friends… Dealing with authority early, that is not your parents… [Learning] about hard work [and] commitment.”
As a wrestling coach in the community for the Harlem Jets, he is working to get kids active and connected so they can gain access to higher opportunities. Eric works with a wide range of ages throughout the nine months of the program, operating out of Eagle Academy in Harlem. They compete locally in the fall, placing in the top two or three for the past four years, and participate in travel tournaments in the winter. The spring is the “freestyle season” for more dedicated kids to compete at a higher level, and even travel farther for two to three day tournaments. Through wrestling the kids also gain a huge community, getting to interact with people from different areas and gaining social emotional skills through participating in the sports as well. “We've always taken a holistic approach to coaching…. As a child [today], you deal with so much more than I would have ever imagined when I was a child, right? If you'd have given me all this, I don't know what would happen…. So now… I'm like, 'Oh, you guys really need a support system of some sort…'” He continues, “The importance of them being able to learn how to socialize, learn how to deal with their emotions on a regular basis, we've taken a more… direct approach…So we've got a leadership development curriculum, a social emotional development curriculum [and] core values [are] also encompassed within the program.” Eric believes it is important for kids to learn how to not function off of impulse but be able to register their emotions, learn discipline, leadership, and how to work with others starting at a young age, “I'm gonna give you all those lessons right now. That's why we wrestle. Wrestling will give you every single one of those lessons in a matter of a season. You'll have to learn [commitment and discipline]. You'll have to learn to deal with hardship. You'll have to deal with loss. Regularly… You have to deal with people.... Feedback and correction, and somebody else… potentially [raising] their voice…. If we don't teach our young people those things earlier in life, to understand… their emotions, understand how they're feeling and when they can push back and when they need to pull back… If we don't do it early, then they might not ever get it.” Eric describes wrestling as a journey of self discovery and self awareness, “Because you can't perform well if you're not your best self, no matter what. But wrestling is one of those things because it's so physical and it's me and you combat wise, when you're in your feelings you'll be exposed…. It's personal… but it's also a team, right? So on the other side, the team part is like your teammates are relying on you to do whatever your job is against that person. They can't help you. They're gonna cheer for you, but they can't help you. But you still have a job. It's a very stressful thing to think that [your match and cause your team to win or lose]... It's just a lot of pressure mentally. So… we always say, if you can go through an [entire] wrestling season, you can go through almost anything.”
“Harlem’s rounding me out…. Because I grew up in the country… Being there and then being in New York, it’s just completely different in terms of the social norms… Now I can see from a [different perspective] when… talking to kids and... dealing with people.”
His journey in Harlem has been “adventurous and eye opening.” Living in Harlem, he is learning more about himself and others through interacting with a variety of unique people. “Harlem's rounding me out…. Because I grew up in the country… I'm gonna call it the country now. Coming to grips with it, right. But living in the country and then… cutting school and going to [Philadelphia]... And then [going] to school, northeast Pennsylvania, where they ski… It's cold all the time… They love sports… Being there and then being in New York, it's just completely different in terms of the social norms… Now I can see from a [different perspective] when… talking to kids and dealing with them or dealing with people.” He tries to meet as many people in Harlem as possible, and understand what is happening in the community, “Because I don't know what everybody's doing. And if I'm gonna do my part, I gotta know what you're doing. Try to understand what's going on. So every parent that comes in, 'So what do you do? What's your job? What's happening? How can I utilize that or how can I be of service?' Right. So doing that has helped me, in that sense, to be able to do those kinds of things, trying to just support our own. Support our own on a regular basis… and being comfortable with myself.” Eric says, “I like seeing our people do our thing, no matter what it is.” Envisioning continued development in the community, more businesses, community spaces, cultural venues, and restaurants, he looks forward to what’s to come. As for the Harlem Jets, he cannot wait to continue outreach in the community, getting more kids involved and enthusiastic about sports, and gaining opportunities through them for higher education and having the tools to achieve their life goals.
