Corporal Frank Young works at Prince George's County Police headquarters.

We don't have much to report about Frank's judo and wrestling history yet (just the big stuff). But we do have this great photo:

The medal around Frank's neck was for winning 1st place at the Shufu Regionals in February, 1996. Shufu is the 7-state region from Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, down through North Carolina. The trophies in each hand are this year's and last year's 1st place trophies in the Liberty Bell Classic in late March. Just like last year, he won every match by ippon (total victory).

(The Liberty Bell Classic is a HUGE tournament held every year in Philadelphia. It usually draws 3/4ths as many people as the Nationals itself! The reason must be the trophies, which are absolutely wonderful: They're miniature replicas of the real Liberty Bell. The bells are movable and have clappers, so they actually ring!)

One of Frank's wrestling students (Gabrielson) at Northern High School in Calvert County, MD, made the finals of the 1996 Olympic team trials for wrestling.

At the USJI Senior Nationals on 04/12/96, Frank won his first Nationals match (the first of many, no doubt), against a nidan (2nd degree blackbelt) from Washington State. It was an advanced version of uchimata sukashi: By remaining flexible, he rode out his opponent's leg lift and threw his opponent between his own legs!

9 days later, at the Shufu 1996 Spring Promotional, he won all 8 matches, 7 by ippon and 1 by waza-ari, got jump-promoted to ikkyu (one rank below blackbelt) and won outstanding male competitor. If that weren't enough, he did it showing broad technical skills: throwing one opponent with o-uchi-gari, another with uchimata, another with sasae-tsurikomi-ashi and another with ko-soto-gari (not ko-soto-gake or de-ashi-barai, but true ko-soto-gari, which requires noticeably more skill). He beat the remainder of his opponents with pinning techniques. (Abandon ye all hope who go to the mat against Frank.)

And at the Shufu 1998 Fall Promotional, he was awarded his shodan (first degree blackbelt), much to the relief of the other brownbelts who would otherwise had to fight him.

Congratulations, Frank!

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Last updated 02/22/2009.