3/7/21 First Big Wrestling Meet For The Big Boy? (part 1 of 2)

     Baby A had his first big wrestling meet Saturday morning and it was intense, for sure.  I am not excited about how they run things, I have to say.  I am sure that on Wednesday night, the coach announced the Saturday meet and that he said it would be starting at 5:00pm.  Our son then let us know yesterday that he had to be on campus at 8:00am and the tournament would then start at 9:15am.  Fine, it's not like we have anything else to do at that hour, luckily, we are flexible enough, but maybe the time and announcements could be more forthcoming and maybe more parents would then show up.  At the start of the meet, there were maybe 8 or 9 sets of parents, mostly single people sitting in the smallish gym seating available.  By the end, maybe another 5-6  parents/family members had showed up.

    Regardless of the lack of audience, the sport itself is really intense and I think the more I understand it, the more fun it becomes.  I had this vision of something like Karate Kid with huge teams from different schools showing up to represent their schools was the norm, but so far, I have seen about 6-7 schools and only one has had a formidable team with more than 6 kids.  According to one of the parents sitting close to Wife, their coach made the whole defensive line or side of the football team come out for wrestling, I forgot what school it was, but they had around 18 kids out there.  All that does not matter to the wrestler, as they only wrestle in whatever weight class they are in.  It gets a little squirrelly because the weights are very tightly controlled until 215 pounds, then it is a free for all with the final weight class being up to 285.

    The rounds are just 2 minutes long and they go for a max of 3 rounds, but a lot happens in those 6 minutes.  Some of these kids needed a minute to compose themselves and get off the mat after they were done, they gave so much of themselves.  After the first two matches, I was talking to Wife quietly that these guys are so dramatic acting like they are so tired, to me it is just a few minutes, but all of them seemed wore out after their matches.  My thinking was like Baby A could play a whole football game on both sides of the line and seem fine after, but I guess there is a lot of stopping and resetting and not every play requires 100% effort.  I am so impressed with the heart that these guys go out and play with.  There is nothing easy about this sport, it surely does not get the recognition it deserves.