HIGH SCHOOL WRESTLING WITH WOLVES

There comes a time in high school wrestling when you get thrown to the wolves.

Ok, not real wolves, just the first time you knew you were over-matched, going to get rag-dolled, and still went out there.

It doesn’t always work out the way it’s expected.

I was a second year wrestler slated to face the best guy on the other team, the king of the practice room who dominated everyone else.

The other team had three good wrestlers in the top weights.

I’d already lost to two of them, and the guy I was to face beat them in practice every day.

Both coaches juggled the line up to make it happen.

Someone had to face their thumper so our good guys could beat their other guys.

That match was tied going into the last two weights.

It was me, then the heavyweights.

Their heavyweight had cut down to the second to last weight class, 191 lbs.

The coach gave me his best pep-talk before going out: “Just don’t get pinned.”

He knew I was going to lose, I knew I was going to lose, the other guy knew he was going to kick ass on the scrub thrown out to him.

Me? I was the fresh meat?

 

Two days earlier we had a guest clinic where we’d learned a new take-down, an inside trip off an arm-drag set-up.

It came with a warning: Only try this move when you’re down a point at the end of a match.

Good advice.

After a rough start that included getting punched in the face like a speed-bag, then tackled and slammed to the mat, and a penalty point for unsportsmanlike conduct on them, the guy’s furious demeanor ramped up.

For all appearances I was out there with a real psycho intent on scaring me, pounding me down, then getting his arm raised after winning the match for his team.

In my mind that all added up to desperate measures, like the one I’d just learned two days earlier.

And it worked.

I won, the last guy tied, and that night the North Bend Bulldogs defeated the mighty Marshfield Pirates for the title of top dual meet team on the entire Oregon coast.

Now, I made up the title these many years later, but both teams were AAA big schools in 1972 and no one on the coast was better.

 

High School Wrestling, Pt 2

Fast forward from ’72 all the way to 2003 and I have a first year wrestling son checking in at 185 lbs.

Instead of bringing him along normally, his coach threw him to the wolves.

The story: They faced a team in a dual meet that had the #1 ranked guy at 215 lbs who had just been challenged for his varsity spot by a teammate.

And lost.

The challenger had taken a year off of high school to start a family, came back, and handled the #1 ranked guy like a baby.

That he looked like he’d just gotten out of prison with all of the ink and muscle didn’t help.

My kid looked like the first year of wrestling fourteen year old that he was.

The coach should have forfeited the weight. Instead he sent my boy out against a grown man.

And go out he did. To get lifted like the girl in pairs figure skating, slammed down, and pinned.

 

 

It was the sort of experience you hear as ‘the reason I quit wrestling.’

That he didn’t quit told me everything I needed to know.

The coaching decision told me I needed to get wrestling mats for my garage and give my kid a chance to improve.

And he did.

I failed him by not showing how to throw a wicked head and arm from both sides, from everywhere and every position.

He managed to win matches in spite of my help, hanging up two district titles in the best wrestling district in the state, placing twice in state, and winning greco and freestyle state titles as a senior before going to Battle Ground and facing a guy who threw wicked head and arms from both sides and every position.

That guy.

 

Life Long Learning

High school wrestling is a lens through which those who’ve done it see their world.

It’s not the only lens, but due to the age-range, it leaves a lasting impression over a wide range of life experiences.

Say you face a challenge you feel certain to lose?

On one side there’s ‘Why bother, you know you’re going to lose, you don’t stand a chance, you can’t do it, fuggitaboutit.’

And it makes perfect sense. You should forget about it.

But you take things personally. Forget about what?

 

 

Forget about controlling the fear of failure enough to stand up for yourself?

Nooooo.

Forget about what you’ve done to get where you are?

Noooooo.

Forget about getting thrown to the wolves?

Nooooo.

 

Adversity Is Life

Baby boomers remember greasing up for a good sunburn base that everyone knew was the foundation of a proper tan. (Or heat rash)

Tap into that personal history, for better or worse, and share the results of self-education, or what you’ve learned after school.

You win some, you learn from the rest.

If that sounds like a soft way of saying ‘win some, lose some’ then you’re a loser with a bad attitude reading a blogger for help.

Here’s helpful:

 

 

Picture a ping pong table with one end up to hit against. You and everyone else have given it a try and the ball goes everywhere.

Someone visiting says, “You’ve got a ping pong table,” then goes out and smashes balls into the backstop that return to her paddle every time. (Hey Lisa)

Three hours of doubles included fast action, lucky shots, precise edge-skill, and one head-first dive to the concrete chasing a ball.

It turned out the most unlikely to play killer ping pong played better than everyone.

Who knew?

 

PS: When you talk the talk, and walk the walk, you have a choice of backing it up, or not.

 

PSS: A promise to others is not the same as a promise to yourself. Which one would you break first?