AKRON, Ohio _ The dream of Olympic gold didn't end a week ago in Rio.
The quest for greatness continues just about everywhere you can imagine, from small gyms to community pools to the basement Ping-Pong table.
For so-called club teams _ where young athletes begin the journey to hone the skills necessary to compete on the high school or college level and possibly the national and world arena _ the days after the Olympics are like Black Friday at Wal-Mart.
The calls and emails from parents hoping their son is the next Kyle Snyder or their daughter is the next Katie Ledecky are coming in as fast as Usain Bolt crossing the finish line.
The Olympics and its wall-to-wall coverage of a wide variety of sports on multiple channels is advertising that groups like the USA Wrestling Clubs in Ohio could never afford.
State director Chris Kallai said even before the Olympic flame was lit in Rio, there was already excitement about his sport.
There was enough interest to put together a state team of more than 100 wrestlers to attend a national competition this year _ well above the usual number of young athletes looking to make a name on the national stage.
"The numbers are up," he said. "It definitely helps."
More kids are likely to come out to the regional wrestling clubs, like the one he helps out with in Stark County, this fall.
And having Helen Maroulis become the first U.S. female wrestler to win an Olympic gold medal will likely also have a profound impact. Kallai said this will likely spur discussion once again on the state high school level to create a separate female wrestling program. As it stands now, female wrestlers participate on the men's teams.
Aside from watching Ohio State's Snyder win Olympic gold, Kallai said the games brought some local pride as the sauna used by the U.S. wrestling team was created by his shop class students.
In his role as the state director and a member of the national board, Kallai said, he was approached by the U.S. team to use his carpentry skills and build the cedar-lined sauna to be used at nationals and by the Olympic team.
Kallai said a portable sauna would have cost the team as much as $12,000; by making it a project for students at Wadsworth High School, the cost was brought down to $3,000.
"It's pretty neat to say we were part of Rio," he said.
