Emery Parker Is a Good Bad Man

 

Just when I think that we've covered all of the ILLINI Guest Clinicians at Beat the Streets Chicago over the past week at their sold out Summer Camp, along comes Emery Parker. Two-time All American and one-time Round of 12er. 

And not the Emory Parker you've read so much about. 

Apparently, the former ILLINI great also is the leader of BTS Chicago's Mentoring Program and serves on their Young Professionals Board. 

I remember like it was yesterday when Emery beat that tough kid from Rutgers, Nick Gravina, and thinking, "Man, Emery Parker is going to be an All American." Well, he did it twice. I also wrote this about the Poeta-trained athlete, "If Mike Poeta wants to get a loan for an even bigger training facility, he could go into the bank and simply say, 'Emery Parker,' and they would load up shopping carts with cash for him."

Maybe it was the match with Gravina, but if not, it probably happened around that time, Emery Parker is on all fours in front of his opponent, who is also on all fours. The ILLINI reaches up with his knee to pin one of his opponent's arms to the mat, then swings behind him for the takedown. Beautiful!

This is from Wrestlestat.com: 

Check out that learning curve. Redshirt, 9-6; Redshirt Freshman, 5-4, then BOOM, BOOM, BOOM! That graphic shows a lot of "Want To." 

Then, of course, there's the Rodney Dangerfield graphic I always like to use when it comes to Emery Parker:

Emery Parker is a Good Bad Man.