Everybody starts somewhere, usually by just trying, being present, and going on to become better, maybe not great, but just better.
The baby-faced boy walked past me as I watched the wrestling on Mat 1. As he skirted between me and the action on Mat 1, his headgear with his school’s logo slipped from his hand. An older teammate strode to him….
I was attending a fourteen-team wrestling tournament in the Alumni Hall of a Maryland independent school last Saturday. It was the first competition for the new season of 2023-24, and the Hall was packed with wrestlers of all sizes and ages and both sexes, and with coaches, parents, trainers, host school staff, four mats, officials, and me–all in Alumni Hall.
While folkstyle wrestling in high school has changed since I practiced it over fifty years ago, it is also the same. While we never had a tournament with fourteen teams, we never wore headgear, and we never had wrestling shoes. We did have matches of three two-minute periods, and each wrestler tried to defeat the opposition.
Some sports fans enjoy comparing today’s athletes with those of the past, but that seems like comparing an orange with an apple. They have some similarities, but they are two different fruits. I wrestled in the 1960s much like those boys and girls did in the Hall, but in my opinion, any other comparison is pointless. The wrestlers today, even the average ones, know and can execute and counter more moves than those of us who wore tennis shoes for matches and practiced on canvas mats.
But there is still one similarity. While the skill of those boys and girls on Saturday was not that good, their desire and determination were outstanding. Yes, there were wrestling moves that were not executed correctly and countermoves that were, well, just wrong. There were glaring errors in the correct starting positions, and the officials had to “coach” a wrestler more than once.
However, those students were on the mats and trying. To paraphrase the words of President Roosevelt in his famous The Man in the Arena speech, they were “young athletes in the ring,” and no one outside that ring had the right to criticize him.
As I kept watching, I thought of some great American wrestlers and wondered if Dan Gable, John Smith, Kyle Snyder, Tom Ryan, or others had ever competed in a tournament like this. Of course, they did. Everybody starts somewhere, usually by just trying, being present, and going on to become better, maybe not great, but just better, and to be, as Tom Ryan, Ohio State’s coach says, “Authentic.”
….When the older teammate strode to the baby-faced boy who had dropped his headgear, he showed him how to slip the shoulder strap of his wrestling singlet through the headgear chin strap to allow it to dangle next to his hip. When the younger boy had done it correctly, the more experienced boy patted him on the shoulder and said, “Now you’re a wrestler.”
A wrestler, indeed.
Usually wrestling begins for everyone in a few of the ways. An older sibling gives them the insight, a coach offers them an opportunity, a friend encourages them. I got all three. My oldest brother was a heavyweight, his HS coach became my coach by offering me an opportunity as a 5th grader to wrestle with the HS team. He also got a senior to drive me home from practice (thank u Jimmy Knittle), Mark McCaslin encouraged me to do it with him (he was also in 5th grade & his older brother had also wrestled for the HS). It changed my life. It gave me focus, it challenged me, it kept me off the streets, it stopped me from ever drinking, it swayed me to never drink or fight because I was afraid of breaking my hand on someone’s mellon & not being able to wrestle. Wrestling gave me so much more but I am out of time because I have to get to wrestling practice. You see, I am almost 60 years old & I coach wrestling. I still get to put on wrestling shoes ( my first pair were a “hand me down” from Bobby Foley, a HS Sophmore on my first team in 1975…his younger brother, Ward had worn them the year before as a 5th grader…Ward & I probably have the record of longest teamates at Bishop Ireton HS (Alexandria, Virginia). Roger Barbee, Coached my oldest brother, Dick & then got me started the next year. Coach Barbee still coaches me….Thank God he does!!!
Sincerely,
Tim Alger
Air Force Prep