Wrestling
What it took, what it gave back.
Wrestling was a massive part of my life. From freshman year of high school through my final year of college, much of my time was devoted to this demanding sport. It's impossible to fully convey the experience of being a wrestler, but I can say a few things that attempt to explain the madness.
Nothing I've ever done comes close to how grueling and difficult the sport is. When you step out on the mat, the person across from you wants the same thing you do, and they'd be willing to break you for it if the rules allowed. There is no team around you when the whistle blows. When you lose, you can't blame anyone but yourself. That option simply doesn't exist in a wrestling match. If you lose, it's because the person in front of you worked harder than you, or is simply better.
There aren't many experiences in life that give you this raw arena to expose who you are. We usually shy away from things that measure us so directly. In college, every ounce of free time not spent in class or in daily two-hour practices was spent practicing more or working out. Doing the bare minimum gets you nowhere — every person you face has already done that. The wrestlers who edge their way to the podium are the ones willing to spend the extra thousands of hours over years of time.
On top of that, wrestling has weight classes. Cutting weight is a fact of the sport and a necessary evil. If you don't cut, someone hungrier than you — literally and figuratively — drops the extra ten pounds to the next class, and suddenly you're wrestling someone who walks around ten pounds heavier than you. In college athletics, most of that weight is muscle.
When I started wrestling as a high-school freshman, I went 0–21 that first season. I was pinned 20 of those 21 times. I'm still not sure why I didn't quit and switch to something more fun and less painful. I think a part of me wanted something in life that really challenged me and didn't just hand me rewards for showing up. Before wrestling, my free time was video games: easy, instant gratification, easy wins. Suddenly I was standing in front of a sport that chewed me up and spit me out — and in a strange way, I knew that was what I'd been craving.
Fast-forward nine years. I didn't reach my ultimate goal of becoming an All-American, but I still pulled off something I've never met another wrestler who did: my college record was better than my high-school record. College wrestling is a different world where everyone was a stud in high school. The only thing that got me there was an obsession with getting better. I wasn't the most technical wrestler — most of my opponents had been wrestling since middle school, and I started at 14 — so I had to outwork them in every other dimension.
When I look back, not all of the memories are pleasant. The sport hurts, mentally and physically. Plenty of injuries still affect me. When you dedicate nine years of your life to something and fall short of your goals, it hurts. I sometimes wonder what I could have built with those thousands of hours.
Deep down though, I'm thankful for what the sport gave me. It took a lot, but it gave back more. I would not be the person I am today without wrestling. I'm tougher than I would have been, and I learned that I can withstand far more than I thought. When you allow yourself to be consumed by a goal, it's incredible what you'll put yourself through to reach it. If you asked me today whether I'd do it all over again — yes. And I'd dedicate even more of myself to it.