High School Wrestling: Building Champions

We all know that the sport of wrestling dates back to the Roman's and their constant need for brutality and bloodshed in the arena. It was their movie theater; their opera house. Citizens would gather from all over the city to cheer on their favorite gladiator as they displayed their feats of manliness by pummeling each other until someone was subdued, gave up, or worse.

The sport of wrestling in recent times has taken a much less barbaric role, but is still seeded in the finesse and strength attributes that it took many years ago in order to conquor your adversary. Although the efforts in an individual match seem to draw one's attention to the individual and the skill that they produce, the sport of high school wrestling is very much a team sport. Students are forced to grow and improve by being better than they were the day before in the wrestling room or suffer the beating that the other students are more than willing to deal out. This is where the camaraderie between wrestlers begins to take place. After practice private lessons at houses start to occur when a wrestler is in need of special attention in one area of the sport.Teammates begin to help by offering their skill sets and physical bodies for demonstrations and live wrestling sessions.

There is no sport like high school wrestling. No sport requires that an individual knows the absolute breaking point of their bodies, physical and mental limitations and tests self-discipline like wrestling will do. Intense practice sessions under sweat suits and jackets, teammates pushing you to new levels every single day and crash diets prior to making weight for the big matches against rival schools.

I can remember thinking that an ice cube had never tasted so good. It had been almost three days without food and two without any water intake when I lifted my head from my desk in sixth period Spanish class. All of the other students had already left the classroom, but that obnoxious bell that usually scared us if we weren't watching the clock didn't even stir me from my depleted state of stupor. My teacher was looking at me and began to ask if I was all right. Quickly grabbing my book to avoid further questioning I said "yep!" and hauled ass throught the peach colored door. I knew that in just a few short hours I was going to be able to eat some Hawaiian sweet rolls, half of a Publix sub and the coveted purple gatorade (Fierce Grape) that had me salivating at the though (which was good because at this point I was 0.2 lbs. overweight and I was able to spit).

At 5'6" and 147 lbs. the day prior, I was going to weigh in that night at 135 lbs. The problem was that for someone that was already 7% bodyfat, I was literally depleting everything that my body needed in order to function. Wrestling was where I first tried "dip" or chewing tobacco to lose those few extra points off of a pound an hour before weigh-ins. Lucky for me it only took me 8 years to quit! It's funny the things we remember as we grow older. I can't name one important date, but if you asked me to remember the way that sandwich and gatorade tasted together that day after weigh-ins, I could bring that up in an instant.