A little background and a story....

I'm actually back dating this post because it should be first in order to give you a little bit of background info.  I have 3 children, 2 boys and 1 girl, that are all involved in wrestling.  I'll call them Cale, Conor and Julie to protect the innocent.  My two boys are wrestlers and my daughter was a wrestler for a short, but eventful week when she was 10.  I still call her involved because she loves to travel to the tournaments and meets with us. 
I wrestled indistinguishably in high school, with football being my primary sport, and my two younger brothers wrestled (to far more distinction).  I was fortunate enough to grow up in the great state of Pennsylvania, so I have been privileged to see some of the best youth and high school wrestling in the country.  When I was in 7th grade my local high school happened to field one of the greatest teams our wrestling district has ever seen; complete with legendary (for our locality) wrestling stars and great personalities - including the parents, ha.  I went out for the middle school team that year and competed for the first time.  But my love of the sport first really started in my early twenties watching my siblings compete in high school. I have lots of great stories from that time, but this blog is titled "Confessions of a Wrestling PARENT," so I'll concentrate on stories from the the perspective of a wrestling parent right now.  Maybe later some of those stories will appear.  By the way, I'll be working on a new title for this blog over the next week, but that was the best I could come up with at the moment.

My oldest son Cale is a sophomore in high school and began wrestling at the age of five.  I signed him up for the local club and he had a couple of practices with his intramural team. Soon, one Saturday I found myself seated in the stands of a middle school gym preparing to watch him wrestle his first match.  I think he was about 40 or 45 pounds at the time.  It's so long ago that I can't remember how much he weighed, but I can distinctly remember him walking out to shake hands with his opponent.  Both of the boys were little tow heads and they began to make faces and pose like they were professional wrestlers as they approached the circle.  I'm sure the ref laughed, not that I would have noticed as my blood pressure had just soared past 200.  The match started and the flipping and flopping commenced.  Each kid spent a fair amount of time on his back, on his head and on his butt.  With time winding down, somebody got back points to make it a 15-15 tie.  Not sure who, can't remember if it was back points, but I guess it had to be, as I think the match was mostly reversals and back points.  What I can remember vividly is the pounding headache that ensued and having absolutely no recollection of what I had said (shouted), done or how I had gotten from the stands to mat side during the match.

I often recall that day when I see parents going over the top at wrestling events.  The first few times you see your child participating in a form of combat - everybody gets a pass.  Parents seem to learn how to deal with this with varying speeds.  Some never do.

Strange coincidence about that first match.  Out of the 60 or so kids in that intramural program, probably only 4 or 5 made it all the way through to high school varsity.  The kid Cale wrestled was one of them, although at a different school than my son - we have long since moved.  And that kid's younger brother often wrestles with my younger son, Conor, on various teams and they have become friends.  Funny how that happens.