Takedowns and reversals on the wrestling mat are teaching a group of students discipline and life skills.

Coach James Tanniehill and vice president Laura Rader started the Take Down Crime program after the Tanniehill Wrestling Academy received $40,000 as part of a larger $4.5 million City of Indianapolis Crime Prevention Grant.

“We wanted to provide a program for kids in high-risk areas or who financially wouldn’t be able to participate outside of school,” Rader said. “Wrestling provides a great opportunity to teach kids life lessons.”

Through wrestling, Tanniehill teaches kids how to be good citizens, keeps them off the streets and encourages them to do well in the classroom.

“Wrestling builds confidence,” said Tanniehill, who credits a coach for helping him get on the right path.

“Education is number one. I really want them to learn desire, determination and work ethics that will make them good citizens. It has nothing to do with wrestling. It’s about getting kids involved in something good.”

The program started Sept. 17 in Pike Township with three students and has grown to 22 wrestlers from the Westside, Rader said.

Students who commit to the program get a T-shirt and wrestling shoes, and the goal is for them to enter tournaments eventually.

The grant runs out Dec. 31, but Rader and Tanniehill already have applied for another.

Participants in kindergarten through eighth grade practice twice a week at Pike High School or at the program’s new location in the gym at the Friendship Westside Center for Excellence, 3131 W. 16th St., which is owned and run by adjacent Friendship Missionary Baptist Church.

“We welcomed them in because we need programs for young people in our community,” said the Rev. Ronald Covington. “It’s not just wrestling. It’s molding them and trying to be proactive.”

The church also hosts a weekly fish fry in the center from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Fridays. The money helps pay the utilities at the center, which gives the wrestlers and other community groups a place to gather.

Two of Natika Valentine’s sons, Jerome, 11, and Dominic, 9, who go to Deer Run Elementary School in Pike Township, attend the program at Friendship. She heard about it because she attends the church.

“This helps keep them active and keep them involved,” Natika said.

Rader and Tanniehill also have taken the wrestlers once a month to do a community service project.

The kids don’t always recognize they are learning life lessons while wrestling, with most saying that learning how to do takedowns and other wrestling moves is their favorite part of the program. They also shouted out grades of A’s and B’s, when Tanniehill said one of his other wrestlers got straight A’s.

In the program’s short existence, Rader sees changes in the kids.

“A lot of kids have been making a lot of changes,” she said. “There have been kids with yucky grades (who are) now on the honor roll, and some who had bad attitudes now breaking up fights at school.”