“Once you’ve wrestled, everything else in life is easy.”—Dan Gable
I consider myself a wrestler trapped in a basketball player’s body. At 6’5”, I don’t look like a wrestler, but, nevertheless, my heart has always been with wrestling. I wrestled three years of varsity at 185 lb. (when my only options were cut weight or wrestle unlimited) in a less than stellar career. I never committed solely to any one sport in high school, but no sport has remained a part of my life the way wrestling has.
Recently, I have found myself gravitating to podcasts and social media from the likes of Coyte Cooper (“Earn the Right to Live Your Dreams”), Isaiah Hankel (Black Hole Focus), and Jim Harshaw (“Wrestling with Success”). All are former wrestlers. I listen to Jim Harshaw’s interviews with former wrestlers on a near daily basis. These interviews (interestingly, Coyte Cooper has interviewed both Isaiah Hankel and Jim Harshaw, and Jim Harshaw has interviewed Coyte Cooper and Isaiah Hankel) have all caused me to take pause and reflect on how my years as a wrestler have affected who I am today. I have been thinking about how these lessons have shaped my thinking and how I interact with the circumstances in my life. How I teach, how I parent, how I push through adversity, etc. are all affected by my experiences as a wrestler.
My son wrestles. I worry that it may be because I have pushed him in that direction, but, even if there was an initial push, he appears to be developing his own passion for the sport. Whether he continues to have a stellar or less than stellar career in wrestling, I can already see it shaping him. Read my post from…. He is learning the lessons that I learned as a wrestler (albeit, in some cases, post hoc).
In high school, all my best friends were wrestlers. Through the years, I have always gravitated towards wrestling. Wrestlers are a rare breed. There is a palpable energy about wrestlers that is somewhat unique to the sport. Wrestlers great or not so great (like myself) have a certain tenacity and ability to fight through adversity and achieve greatness through a willingness to work like none other. There is a saying: “In wrestling, there are only winners and learners.” This stands on and off the mat.
I have often described that wrestling is unique in that it is a rare sport in which there are three levels of competition: team v. team (in duals), wrestler v. his/her opponent, and wrestler against him/herself. This dynamic makes wrestling a powerful educator.
A wrestler develops a strong sense of team. Though wrestlers compete at different weight classes, their contribution on and of the mat affects the outcome. Even the non-starter affects the team outcome by the effort provided in training. It is a combative, aggressive sport. It can be bloody at times, but in the battle there is always respect. There is always and expectation of pushing harder and being pushed for the betterment of the athlete and the sport. Wrestlers bring this to life outside the sport.
In the combat of the sport, the wrestler wins or loses as an individual. On the mat, he or she, alone, faces the opponent. There is no one else to blame in defeat. There is no one else to carry the wrestler in the match—one-on-one until the final second. The wrestler takes personal responsibility in victory or defeat.
Unlike few other sports, the wrestler is in constant battle with self—cutting/managing weight, pushing through exhaustion, fighting the voices that say: “can’t”. This is perhaps my favorite aspect of the sport. I treasure the self-disciple that wrestling has given me. I love the belief that I can keep fighting until there is no time on the clock. I have learned, and I try to teach my son, that self is the most devastating opponent. Before I can be successful at anything in life, I first have to defeat myself. When I defeat myself, then the physical opponents are less formidable.
I don’t remember a lot of my matches in great detail, but there is one match that I often like to share. I liked the head-and-arm. It was one of my few offensive weapons, though it didn’t always work as successfully as I would have hoped. In one case, I was wrestling a kid, Leroy, in a tri-meet. From the whistle, I successfully shot my head-and-arm and took Leroy to his back. I held him there the entire period, trying to force the shoulder the last fraction of an inch and have the pin called. My teammates were yelling, “Pin him, Jeff!” His teammates were yelling, “Get of your back, Leroy!” The struggle continued (and, honestly, I don’t even recall if I did finally pin him). Long in the struggle, Leroy turned his head to his teammates and responded, “I can’t.” “I can’t” still rings in my head. Right there, he was defeated. It is a phase that I do not allow my children to use. I was taught, “’Can’t’ never did anything.” The recollection of that match, so many years ago, continues to remind me that my attitude determines my outcome. In life, as in wrestling, there are three potential outcomes: 1) overcome and win, 2) fight a hard battle and lose, and 3) give up and lose. Perhaps, we will lose more than we will win, but character is revealed in the battle and how we win or lose.
My senior year, I decided I did not want to lose my annual 30-pound to move from my football weight of 215 to a wrestling weight of 185. Unfortunately, I came out of football with a pinched nerve in my neck and faced stiff competition with my friend, Ken, our Junior Heavyweight. Ken beat me in the wrestle-off. To gain the starting varsity position, I would have to now beat Ken two in a row. We were too comparable, and we would often split the contests. I rode the bench much of season until our 185-pounder, Rich, got sick with the flu. Rich dropped a lot of weight while he was sick and could easily make weight at 165, where he had wrestled the previous year. For the match the following day, Rich was ill, and the team would have to forfeit the weight class. I started practice at 205. It was not uncommon for me to lose 9 pounds of sweat in practice, and this day was no different. With the two-pound allowance, I only had to lose 8 more pounds to make weight for the next day’s match. I volunteered to make the cut. (In those days, there were no restrictions on cutting weight, and, to be clear, there was no pressure from my coaches to do this.) I alternated running in sweats and sitting in a friend’s dad’s Jeep Cherokee with the heat cranked up for several hours that night. The next morning, I got excused from as many classes as possible to run in the pool deck (a natural sauna for wrestling conditioning). As I ran I would alternate running with studying for a precalculus exam I had final period. I attempted my math exam (I couldn’t think clearly and asked to be excused to keep running—I got a D on that exam), still wearing my plastic sweat suit and sweating profusely. In the end, I made weight and, despite being dangerously dehydrated, I wrestled one of my best matches—losing on points to a guy who had pinned me in two previous matches.
I reflected on my unwillingness to drop to the lower weight class after our coach, David Kling, passed after a battle with cancer. I realized that I had been quite selfish. I was going through a difficult time at home, and I had let my ego and selfcenteredness get the better of me. My natural spot on the team was that 185-lb weight class. (I often wonder how my wrestling career might have been different had they changed the weight classes while I was still in high school and had added the 220-lb class. Hindsight is always 20/20, eh?) Had I dropped properly to 185 from the start of the season, I might have performed better through the season, having maintained more of my strength. As it was, I had a horrific senior season. The lesson remains with me today. I have learned from wrestling to accept my role, as difficult as it may be, and to sacrifice for the good of the team—for the betterment of others. My role is to do my part to the best of my ability and make room for others to fulfill their roles. Teamwork involves sacrifice and mutual effort.
Keystone Oaks High School in Dormont (Pittsburgh), PA was coached by many years by David Kling (one of Pennsylvania’s winningest coaches) and David Colley. Through those years a few guys might place at states, but the strength of the program was never in individual wrestlers. Rather, the strength was in the team—in the ability to put up wins where we needed to win dual meets. The coaches pushed us hard, and we were, perhaps, the best-conditioned team in the WPIAL.
Personally, I had a sense that, if I could make it to the final period, I was likely to win because of my conditioning. I have that same sense in life that I will win, if I just keep pressing on. “Can’t” never did anything. In life, there are only learners. As long as there is time on the clock….
Carpe momento.