Higher Calling Youth Wrestling Club Head Coach Josh Bosken (left) accepts a check from the Allan Jones Foundation. Pictured with Bosken is Jones Properties Vice President Will Jones.
The Higher Calling Youth Wrestling Club of Cleveland received a large financial contribution this week from the Allan Jones Foundation.
Josh Bosken, head coach of Higher Calling, announced that his club received a check from the Jones Foundation for $15,000. The donation was a match to funds the club raised at a fireworks sale in July.
“We are the best-funded kids wrestling club in the United States thanks to the Allan Jones Foundation,” said Bosken.
Higher Calling is a wrestling program that gives young wrestlers of all skill levels, grades K through 8, a chance to learn the essentials of practice and competition.
The goal of the program is to train and maintain the highest-quality athletes to help continue the finest wrestling program in Tennessee.
The Foundation requires the club’s members to earn money themselves, which is later matched dollar-for-dollar, said Will Jones, Vice President of Jones Properties. The Foundation is also the largest donor to the kids’ club of Cleveland’s crosstown rival Bradley Central.
“Our donation to Higher Calling along with the club’s own fundraising efforts, make it the highest funded kids club in the county,” said Mr. Jones. “We give the club the challenge to raise money on their own and we are always ready to double what they raise.”
Businessman Allan Jones said Bosken is the primary the reason that Cleveland won state championships in 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and again this year when they swept the state championships for duals and traditional tournament competition in TSSAA Division I's highest classification.
Jones also credited current Blue Raiders Head Coach Joey Knox – who also travels with Higher Calling during the off-season - for winning a state championship every year since he took over the team in 2017. He said the practices and work ethic installed by Knox at the highest level he has seen, with each wrestler pushing each other to be the best – but never being satisfied.
“Coach Knox has guided this team to 18 individual state titles, with 11 wrestlers earning them,” said Jones. “Five of those wrestlers were two- or three-time champions. Thanks to the combination of both Knox and Bosken, this is the #1 wrestling town in the state of Tennessee and any team wanting to win a state championship must come through Cleveland first!”