Wrestling. An ancient art practiced since the ancient times where Rome was a great empire. A sport with thousands of high school programs dedicated to it all around the world. I don’t mean the wrestling with the loud music and obnoxious entries that your uncle used to watch and probably still does, swearing up and down that it is entirely real. I mean the serious wrestling. The wrestling that is more primal and kin to an ancient battle of beasts. The wrestling I hate more than anything. The wrestling that pits two human beings against each other to prove who can touch the other’s shoulders to the mat. As if that is a useful skill in life or helps humanity. Don’t get me wrong, football doesn’t really help the world. But at least it is entertaining. If I wanted to watch two ripped dudes grappling each other in a circle I would’ve went to the local gym and dropped a protein bar in between two of the gym rats that come to show what steroids can do when you juice enough to put down a horse.

Three years of my life have been spent in this sport. A small comparison for many who I know have thirteen years dedicated to the terrible sport. For me and my commitment issues, it’s a lot of time. One day, after I was done spooning ten other guys for two hours, I got in the shower and thought to myself. I started to question why I just subjected myself to the torture of wrestling. Was it because I enjoyed the work outs? No, it couldn’t have been that. Wrestling work outs were cardio. I hated cardio. Why do I need to run when I have a car? I don’t live around bears and cheetahs. I don’t need to run from any animal that is higher on the food chain. Was it the competitiveness of the sport? No, wrestling is far more than just competitive. The guy across from you wants to destroy you. He wants to actually inflict pain on your body until you submit to him. In the history of evolution, humans have tried to distance themselves from things that wish to hurt them. That must’ve been thrown out the window when wrestling came along. So what was it then? Maybe it was the dedication of the sport. Committing to something that was difficult to have pride in yourself and your power of will. Except wrestling doesn’t do a great job of instilling that confidence in you. Wrestling does the opposite. There is always someone that is better than you. I thought back to countless defeats where I was found under a muscular guy with tattoos which could’ve been paying taxes and child support instead of playing high school sports.

My very first match was surprisingly wonderful. I pinned the kid I had by a chance throw to the ground. Everything after that was the equivalent to what comes after you fatten up a steer before selling him off. I was continuously ripped limb from limb and quartered up to be fed to other creatures with far more experience than me. I lost every match after that for a long time. My sophomore year of high school was my first year of wrestling. My egotistic behavior was smothered by utter humility drilled in by continuous losses. When you lose in wrestling. There is no question. There is no blame to place. When you lose, you can’t blame your team mates. You lost. Just you.

As I entered junior year of high school with a fueled vengeance for the wrestlers that put my face to the mat, I put in work. I went to the wrestling tournament where I won my first match. I proceeded to repeatedly lose again. I was pinned by a kid who had me in such a tight lock that it was painful to breath for weeks after. (Later to be told by coaches and a doctor that it was a sprained chest muscle). I sat out of practice for months happily celebrating my absence from the wrestling practices including my absence from the rough assistant coach who made kids cry and bleed even when simply demonstrating wrestling moves. For the sake of privacy, we will just refer to the coach as Coach Jaxson. This coach was disliked by all and hated by a few.

The real bulk of my hatred started when it quit being fun for me. Pressure overcame me and I had set the bar higher than I wished. During districts before my match in the bubble round (the round that decides if you make it to the state championships). I looked at my bracket sheet for the information about my next match. “Wilhoite 30-14” was the kid I was facing. I looked closer at the sheet and below his name and record. “RANK: 3” was printed across the paper. I thought to myself, “this kid is ranked third.” My stomach began to sink. I lost faith in myself. I warmed up and walked to the table to check in for my match. I then walked solemnly to the center of the mat and got in my stance. I looked to the corner of the mat as my coaches came and sat down. I read their faces. “Alright kid, it’s all or nothing, frankly we didn’t think you would make it this for. Pressure is still on though.” My face looks back in a blur as I realize my hand has just been shook and the match has started. The kid was strong. He man-handled me like a rag doll until I finally tried to cowboy up and take it like a man. That only helped a little bit more. For the first few minutes I was in a very defensive stance. Being able to deflect some incoming force and get a few points. I was breathing hard but my body was numb by the third period. My instincts and technique that were still young and rough around the edges took over as I let go of my surroundings. I lost track of which score was mine. I couldn’t hear my coaches anymore. Just the throbbing of adrenaline, yelling, and heavy breathing. I looked at the scoreboard, 5-6. I wasn’t sure who was ahead by one. I was exhausted with enough will to just stall out the match and hope for the best. The whistle blew and the referee had to separate us forcefully. I limped to the center of the match to shake hands with the kid who I would’ve much rather liked to have slapped across the face with a chair. The referee took me by the hand and lifted it up. It dangled around limply. I had won my match. My coach picked me off my feet and embraced me in an oddly fulfilling hug. I just qualified for state. Exciting. Yay. Wooh. I still had another match to determine what I was ranked.

Seeing as how I had already made it to state, I was completely satisfied with basically throwing the next match. I lost and settled for fourth. As everyone except for me and another guy, Mason, went about their lives happily without wrestling and weight watching. We had to put even more work in. painful, soul-sucking work   I went to the State Championships. Remember my terrible record and my last match that I threw because I was complacent with fourth? Well I got seated dead last where I had to face off against the number one kid. (Mid-Buchanan guy with a 41-1 record). Wrestling doesn’t like the underdog as much as you would think. I entered the ring with the bolstering confidence given to me by my coaches saying, “his record is 41-1, which means he CAN be beat.” Then something miraculous happened. I won the match against the number one kid in Missouri. I would just like to thank my coaches and my family for this – oh wait, I didn’t win. That’s a happy ending similar to various fairytales and something that doesn’t happen in real life because dreams are like rainbows, only idiots follow them.

I went home broken, in pain, and saddened by my complete and total annihilation. That lasted a day or two, then I went out to a Chinese buffet and cried tears of joy while shoveling General Tso’s Chicken into my freakishly wide mouth that unhinged like a snake as soon as wrestling season ended. During the next football season I received a concussion and got my head scanned. Among the concussion and numerous missing brain cells, the radiologist also noticed a broken rib that was broken with a large build-up of calcium covering it. It healed wrong because it was never set and was repeatedly broken again just as it was healing a bit. How could this possibly have happened? Wrestling. That chest strain I was diagnosed with by coaches and a doctor was actually a broken rib. Which I stayed off of for a small amount of time and then re-broke over and over again while wrestling in districts and state. Apparently when it hurts to breathe for weeks on end, you should go see the doctor again. I hate wrestling.
Now I know what you are thinking. “This kid is a whiny, weak, sorry excuse for a wrestler and as bitter and jaded about it as a wrinkly old man who went through, not one, but two wars.” And you are completely right. Wrestling was an experience pushed past “humble” and slammed into “degrading and depressing”. You might think I learned something. Maybe I did learn something. I persevered through all the muck and pain that wrestling threw at me. I never quit. Although I thought about it every single day. Some days I would honestly wish I was hit so hard by a car that I would tear an ACL or break a few bones (more than a rib I suppose).That’s how much I wanted wrestling to end for me. But it never came to that. It never even came to a talk with my coaches. No coach would’ve ever guessed how badly I wanted to quit. I never quit. I’m not going to tell anybody to do the same as me, though. I’m not going to end with “The moral to the story is to never quit, because quitters never win.” You don’t have to win. No matter what anybody says, failure is always an option. I would suggest if you plan on failing, at least learn to have fun doing things you aren’t good at.