Beat the Streets Chicago’s Mural Honors City’s Wrestling History

Beat the Streets Chicago Executive Director Mike Powell during a the unveiling of the mural at organization’s Midway location. PHOTO PROVIDED BY JUSTIN HAMES.
Beat the Streets Chicago Executive Director Mike Powell during a the unveiling of the mural at organization’s Midway location. PHOTO PROVIDED BY JUSTIN HAMES.

 Beat the Streets Chicago’s Mural Honors City’s Wrestling History

By Tia Carol Jones

Beat the Streets Chicago has created a mural with the goal to inspire future wrestling talent. The mural, located at 5985 S. Archer Ave., depicts wrestlers from Chicago who have left their mark in some form or fashion in the city and beyond.

At the unveiling of the mural on Sunday, Oct. 29th, there were more than 100 people in attendance. It was an opportunity to bridge the gap between Chicago’s wrestling past and Chicago’s wrestling future.

Beat the Streets Chicago is a sports-based youth development nonprofit organization. It serves more than 3,000 wrestlers a year. Out of those wrestlers, 1,300 are in programs at Beat the Streets throughout the year. The young people at Beat the Streets participate in wrestling programs, as well as after school tutoring and summer STEAM camps.

The idea for the mural is similar to the mural in the wrestling room at the University of Illinois. There are more than 3000 names and 500 photos on the mural. It took more than a year to curate the names and photos. In order to do this, the team had to look at every single Illinois State wrestling bracket since 1975.

The goal of Beat the Streets Chicago’s mural is to honor Chicago’s wrestling history. The mural is rooted in Chicago wrestling history, so anyone on that mural is from the city, wrestled in the city and was successful in the city.

“It serves to inspire the kids that come in everyday, so they can look at the wall and say ‘wow, these people were in my shoes, and if they did it, I can do it, too,’” said Justin Hames, Marketing Coordinator of Beat the Streets Chicago.

There is room to add on to the mural, as Beat the Streets Chicago wrestlers and Chicago Public School wrestlers make a name for themselves. The goal of having the mural is to give the young wrestlers an extra bit of motivation to continue on their path. There also are Life Champions depicted on the wall. Those people are role models and entrepreneurs, who have been successful in life, that can inspire the young people who participate in the program.

“As girls wrestling continues to grow, which is incredible, we’re going to have a lot more girls on the wall and it’s going to be great,” Hames said.

Mr. T, also known as Laurence Tureaud, is on the wall. He wrestled at Dunbar Vocational High School before he became an actor and was featured in “Rocky III” and “The A-Team.”

 Mike Boyd, Head Men’s Coach at Beat the Streets Chicago, is also on the wall. He wrestled at St. Rita of Cascia High School. There are current Ultimate Fighting Championship Fighters on the wall, including Curtis Blaydes and Belal Muhammad, as well as people who wrestled on the world stage and in Division 1.

“Wrestling is a pretty small community, so most of the people we knew about.  Wrestling in Chicago has a really successful past, so we knew pretty much about all of these guys and girls. It was more about getting them on the wall so they could be honored,” Hames said.

For more information about Beat the Streets Chicago, visit btschicago.org.

Latest Stories

Latest Podcast

STARR Community Services International, Inc.