We are at the culmination of high school wrestling season. Today starts the state tournament for those good enough to make it. I have been away from wrestling for a long time. The last time I dipped my toe in it was youth mat club when I accompanied my son for a season. It became pretty clear that this wasn’t going to be his sport and so I drifted away.

My brother and I were into it in high school. He has remained active, in fact he is a head coach at a local high school. My nephew and my son are three weeks apart. He started school a year later than my son so that makes him a junior this year. But, he stayed in youth wrestling and is now reaping the rewards of that. A third district title and a 34-4 record looking to make a mark in the state tournament.

There are very few sports where getting started early pays as many dividends as wrestling. Most of the state champions that I have followed have been devoted youth club participants all the way through their career. Wrestling involves strength, quickness, stamina and technique. Show me someone that has continuous participation and you won’t find them out of shape.

When I was a wrestler, I started out late. I actually did it because I heard that it was hard, physically. I was a sophomore in high school and started in the 165lb weight class. I remember the day that I decided, I was wearing a ‘professional couch potato’ t-shirt. I wrestled on the Freshman team and didn’t win a match, not even close. In fact, I got pinned in about 20 seconds in my first match.

I wasn’t discouraged. I was doing this for me but to see how much I could push myself. I don’t remember how I did when I was Junior, I think that I was pretty bad that year as well. But I decided that I was going to push myself my senior year. Instead of just wrestling, I ran cross country in the fall. I went from one of the slowest running wrestlers to one of the fastest.

I was in shape wrestling between the 142 and 136 weight classes comfortably, I developed a never quit attitude. I still couldn’t beat the kids that had five years of experience over me. I was physically tougher but less skilled. And despite all of my efforts my senior year, I didn’t wrestle a single varsity match. I don’t consider that a failure, I simply ran out of time.

I pestered my brother for the wrestling schedule at Christmas time. He finally sent me the schedule with one dual left to go, so I went to support my nephew. My nephew won his match by pin, one two team wins in a 69-9 blowout. My wife really wanted to go to districts so we made the day of it and watched my nephew win his weight class in districts, now it is on to state.

In today’s world, I think too much emphasis is placed on putting kids in club sports. Travelling basketball, volleyball, baseball cost thousands of dollars and precious time on kids that likely have no future beyond high school. In fact, there were a few years I was questioning who wanted to wrestle more, my nephew or his parents. They claimed that it was his decision, they were just making him finish his commitment.

Some are going to go on. My nephew claims he wants to wrestle in college and winning a state title as a junior would help a lot. As long as the kid is happy and everybody loves it, I am fine with that. It has been a huge commitment in their lives.

End Your Programming Routine: We all do for our kids what we hope is the best path. I have zero interest in participating in Chess in the Park but there is no denying that it requires my enablement to fully make it happen. Wrestling was really important in my life not for what I did but for what it did for me. My mindset moved from that is too hard to try to I can do anything I set my mind to. That was invaluable to me.