About AAW

[pullquote]Sports demand extraordinary mental toughness, perseverance, the courage to confront daunting challenges and the will to recover from painful defeats. [/pullquote]Athletes Are Warriors (AAW) is a pre- and post-event destination for fans, parents, and athletes of amateur sports in the Bay Area.  AAW features photography and articles from award-winning sports photographer Tony Rotundo, as well as other contributing sports photographer and writers.  The AAW website includes recent photography from all types of sporting events around the Bay Area and US, as well as articles and blogs posts from on-site locations.

Why Warriors?  AAW is not a hyper-military website, though we do honor and appreciate the service of our armed forces.  Rather, AAW was named after the remarkable amount of heart, courage, determination, and fearlessness that it takes to participate in sports at all levels.  The name of the site really is an expression of this fortitude: Athletes truly are warriors.

Sports demand extraordinary mental toughness, perseverance, the courage to confront daunting challenges and the will to recover from painful defeats. Our community embodies and transmits to our young people these qualities. It’s our history and culture: hard-working, tough, resilient.

AAW has a companion site for wrestling and MMA called Wrestlers Are Warriors (wrestlersarewarriors.com).  Check it out if you are a fan of those disciplines.

DONATIONS
Funds for AAW come out of our own pocket as a labor of love.  If you would like to make a donation for travel expenses that would be greatly appreciated!

Contact
Please contact the editors by emailing them here.
Phone: 415 902 8346

ARTICLES ABOUT AAW
The website Intermat Wrestling recently published an article about Mr. Rotundo, you can read it here: Photographers Sachs, Rotundo chase passion.

AWARDS
2012 Irv Oliner Award –  Tony Rotundo, wrestlersarewarriors.com
The Irv Oliner Award is presented each year at the Californian High School State Wrestling Championships to a person who has made an outstanding contribution to California Wrestling.  The award was presented to WAW photographer and editor Tony Rotundo by Al Fontes on behalf of the California High School Wrestling Coaches Association and TheCaliforniaWrestler.com.  A very poor quality video of the presentation taken by Mr. Rotundo is linked here (he is a still photographer after all and cannot be expected to shoot video very well).  Here is an interview following the event.

2011 National Wrestling Media Association –  Photographer of the Year – Tony Rotundo, wrestlersarewarriors.com
Rotundo, who lives in Oakland, Calif., has been a photographer for five years for the award winning Tech-Fall.com website, which posts quality images from all levels of wrestling. In addition, Rotundo’s pictures have appeared in national publications such as USA Wrestler, W.I.N. Magazine, Wrestling USA and Amateur Wrestling News. His work is also used by numerous Div. I wrestling programs to promote their teams. Rotundo, the son of a successful wrestling coach in upstate New York, started wrestling at the age of five. While at Clarence High School, he took sports photography of his teammates and friends for the yearbook. While attending the Univ. of Buffalo, where he was a wrestler, Rotundo also took photography classes. He moved to the West Coast and was out of both wrestling and photography for awhile. He then served four years as wrestling coach at Berkeley High School in California. It was at a high school event where he met John Sachs of Tech-Fall.com and decided to photograph wrestling once again. He has shot many of the major events including the World Championships, the Olympic Trials, the World Team Trials, the NCAA Championships and the California State High School Championships. Rotundo takes special interest in photographing college wrestling, working events such as the Big Ten and Pac-10 championships. He has a background in graphic arts, which assists in his ability to edit and process his pictures into spectacular images. Rotundo currently works as a producer for MX, which makes DVD and Blu-ray discs. He uses his vacation time to travel to wrestling events and provide quality photography to the entire wrestling community.