High School Wrestling

Wrestling is tough. There is no other way to put it. Wrestling demands all the physical tools of football, basketball, martial arts mixed together. It demands strength, flexibility, speed, aggression, and grit. Of all sports available to the High School athlete, it is the hardest, most grueling, demanding endeavor they can attempt. On the team I coach, we had probably a dozen or more come out for the team, and they quit during preseason training. This is typical. Wrestling is tough.

For my wrestlers we start the second day of school with preseason conditioning. Usually three days a week, about two hours a day. They do four or five hundred push ups. Maybe six hundred sit ups. Some pull ups, usually on the bleachers or on a chain linked fence. We run. Wind sprints, long distance, Indian runs, hills, high knees, side by sides, up the bleachers, down the bleachers, all of the above. They run, sometimes they carry each other on their backs; sometimes I have them carry large rocks. We’ll do all of this until they’re gassed, and then we lift some weights. Squats, dead lifts, bench presses, all in rapid fire succession, beating their bodies into the minimum shape they need to be competitive. Some of the parents say its torture, but their kids, the one’s that don’t quit, eat it up. They ask for more. I know we’re tougher than some schools, easier than others, but these guys thrive on this kind of stuff. It’s what makes them wrestlers.

Then come late October, the practices begin. For us, it’s a maelstrom of technique, conditioning, live wrestling, and mental preparation. I won’t get into the specifics, but the average practice usually two, three hours will leave them drained completely. We’ve had some guys so dog tired by the end of it all, the begged to quit. Their teammates wouldn’t let them. They returned the next day, you guessed it, hungry for more. It’s not that we push them to extremes. We push them to their limits, and the limits get higher and higher. Wrestling is a complete, total body workout. You use every muscle and you’ve got to have stamina and speed all molded together. These kids know this and the thrive on putting it all together, and hammering out more and more time on the mat until they get it right. Practice after practice, day after day, all leading up to the reason why they do it.

The meets. Marathon sessions on Saturdays lasting sometimes from four in the morning to nine at night. That’s not an exaggeration, and a lot of times it’s the norm. they sit and wait, until they wrestle, up to five matches in a day. Are there a lot of fans? No. it’s their friends, girlfriends, family, and that’s about it, if they’re lucky. Not many gyms get packed for the wrestling. They don’t care. They draw solidarity from each other. Wrestling is an individual sport, but you won’t find many teams stronger. It’s because these guys all sleep on the same bed of nails. They draw strength in that. They look at the guy next to him and see a solidarity, a brotherhood that didn’t exist before. It’s the shared burden of the drills, the conditioning, and the practices. Mold that together and you have a team, a team that thrives on each other’s successes, and bolsters each other in failure.

It’s a brutal sport. Injury wise it’s nowhere near as bad as football, soccer, or some of the others. These guys train with an intensity that most sports can’t. I talked to a few basketball coach friends of mine and we compared notes. They’re eyes bulged when they realized what we did. The standard response was, ‘my kids would quit’ or ‘the parent’s wouldn’t go for that’. The wrestlers smile at all this when I tell them. They take pride in what they do. They know they don’t get much recognition, but they realize what they put into it all. When they win, beat someone else who has gone through the same thing they have, it means something. They have tested themselves and passed. They have polished the stone and made a gem. Besides the competitive aspect, they thrive on the camaraderie. These guys look at their fellow wrestlers as an extended family, and it goes on well past High School. I still know guys that keep in contact years after their time on the mat is done.

When it’s late November, and the matches start, I want all of you to take a moment one Wednesday night or Saturday and go support your local wrestlers. They’ll appreciate it. As you sit in the stands, the rules may be a little hard to get at first, but the main point is pin the other guy. Watch them and see what they do, the sacrifices they make to be the best at a sport that drains so much from them. Appreciate it for a moment, and see for yourself what this wonderful sport is all about.