Boy In The Ring

Have you ever participated in a sport before you've even seen it played? I mean, before I played my first baseball game I'd seen a lot of baseball games. Before I played my first football game I'd seen a lot of football games in person and on TV. Before I went golfing for the first time I had watched it on TV many times. But for me, that's not how it was for my first wrestling match. Here's how it went down.

It was the day of our first meet and I was nervous. We were to wrestle Peoria Manual that night and I had no idea what to expect. All I knew was I was the 95 pound varsity wrestler. Now my normal weight was right around 97 or 98. All I had to do to make weight that night was to skip lunch and go easy on the water. The match was scheduled for 7 p.m. and weigh in was at 6 p.m. Well, I made weight with no problem; I think I weighed about 94 1/2. But when Manual weighed in I noticed that they didn't have a 95 pounder. My teammates told me that meant I was going to win by forfeit. I was a little disappointed because I was ready to wrestle, but at the same time relieved because I had been pretty nervous. Everything was a new experience for me, from team warm-ups to introductions. As we were warming up on the mat my coach, Mr. Gross informed me that he was bumping me up to wrestle at 103. He was moving me up to 103 because since I could beat our 103 pounder he figured I had a better chance to win. My first thought was, "I could have eaten lunch".

Okay, now it was time to get nervous again. My teammates informed me that my 103 pound opponent was a junior named Steve Empson who was the conference champ last year. "Conference champ?” I thought. "You've got to be kidding me." So here I was, a freshman with two weeks practice under my belt, weighing 95 pounds, and wrestling up a weight class against a junior who was the defending conference champ. I knew I was in trouble. "Oh well, maybe not too many people will watch my match". You see, I thought wrestling matches would be like practice. In practice everybody wrestled at once, 20 or 30 guys on the mat. I figured there would probably be four or five matches going on at a time and maybe no one would notice me. That's how naïve I was.

The mats were cleared, coach told me to take off my warm-up top, and shook my hand. He gave me a slap on the rear and sent me out to the mat. As I went out to the mat I turned back to look at my teammates. I noticed that no one was following me. It was then that I realized I was going to wrestle out there all by myself! Well, me and my opponent. As I walked out to the mat, I took a good look at my opponent. He was muscular, had hair on his chest and shaved a full beard. Heck, I had barely reached puberty. I was a baby faced freshman boy going against a hardened, veteran young man. We stepped to the circle, shook hands, and waited for the ref to blow the whistle. Everything was a blur in my mind, I couldn’t think. I was trying to remember the few moves I had been taught. The sound of the whistle interrupted my thoughts and I instinctively began to shuffle stiffly in my stance. Before I could blink, wham! He was in on my legs and taking me to the mat in an instant. As we hit the mat I turned to go belly down but he caught my shoulder and I couldn't get off my back. The gym was roaring with cheers and I was fighting for my life when the whistle blew. We had gone out of bounds and the ref was taking us back to the center for another start. The whistle blew again and he was in on me before I could move, this time we landed in the center of the mat. Again I was on my back fighting for my life. I struggled to keep at least one shoulder up so I wouldn't get pinned but he kept tightening up his hold on me. As I battled I could faintly hear the crowd and my teammates urging me to get off my back. Suddenly the whistle blew and I heard the ref slap the mat. I had been pinned in 56 seconds. We shook hands and I walked dejectedly off the mat. There had been nowhere to hide; everyone in the gym saw it. That’s when I learned it takes a special person to walk out on a wrestling mat.

I sat down on the bench and looked at the mat. Our 112 pounder was getting ready to wrestle. I was finally going to get to see my first wrestling match of my life. I can’t remember if he won or lost, I was still thinking of my disastrous start. As the meet wore on it was a back and forth battle between us and Manual. The meet came down to the heavyweight match with us trailing 27-25. Our 180 pounder and one of the studs of the football team, Larry Elmore, had been bumped up by coach to wrestle Manual’s heavyweight. Elmore was one of my heroes. I didn’t think anyone could whip him. He won a hard fought 3-2 win and we beat Manual that night 28-27.

Many years ago President Theodore Roosevelt gave a cool talk about “The Man in the Ring”. He talked about how people on the sidelines can talk all they want but until you’ve been in the ring yourself, you can’t really understand what it’s like. Well, I got a taste that night, even if I was just the boy in the ring.

Check out www.chiefpigskin.com for more good stories about football and life.