My wild ride to the 2008 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III Wrestling Championship final started in first grade, wrestling in the fifty-five-pound weight class. What has stayed with me is how wrestling ended midway through second grade. In the semifinals of a tournament, a fellow second-grader lifted my arm and snapped it in two places over his shoulder. My season was instantly over.
I decided that wrestling was not for me at the start of third grade. It was not fun anymore. I was only eight, and if something was not fun at that age, why would any kid want to continue it? This would be the first of two times that I quit wrestling. In hindsight, the broken arm was beneficial to my future career. I was not ready to be a wrestler yet. If I had not stopped competing then, I probably would have become burnt out as many young wrestlers do. They are not competing for enjoyment or the love of the sport, but instead out of habit, family pressure, or to get a scholarship. None of these things are good reasons to stay in any sport.
I loved wrestling, but my desire to train and compete lay dormant for the next five years while pursuing other sports, including soccer and baseball. Some unlikely characters sparked the yearning to wrestle again. The first was Vince McMahon (@VinceMcMahon), who had created the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), now World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). I watched the WWF on television every week. In the layoff from amateur wrestling, my love for professional wrestling flourished. I idolized charismatic characters such as Hulk Hogan (@HulkHogan), Bret Hart (@BretHart), and others in their company. I already knew that this “professional sport” was scripted even at that young age. Still, part of me figured the best way to emulate my heroes was to become an amateur wrestler again.
As my love for scholastic wrestling returned after five years, my passion for the WWF waned. I only had room for one kind of wrestling in my life. The wrestling I did was nothing like the pros, although I preferred it for its pureness. Athletics is one of the only true arenas in which greatness can be fairly measured, a rare place where you make your break instead of waiting for one to happen miraculously.
Another more direct influence on me was my older brother Steve (@sensyden). He started competing in ninth grade for our hometown of Nutley, New Jersey, when I was in the sixth grade and was still watching professional wrestling. He contended in the 171-pound weight class his first season, despite only being 5’2”. By his senior season (which was my freshman year), Steve had lost all that pudginess and turned himself into one of the toughest and most exciting wrestlers ever to step foot on a Nutley mat.
Steve and I have a rare, one-in-a-million wrist ailment called Madelung’s deformity. An extra ligament in our arms causes it. It has twisted our bones to the point where it looks like we have permanently broken wrists. The main obstacle for us to overcome is wrist weakness.
Strong wrists are very useful for wrestlers because they lead to grip strength. The more grip strength a wrestler has, the stronger they feel in a clinch. The wrist deformity put us at a disadvantage from the beginning of our careers. Seeing Steve set that aside and successfully wrestle stoked my interest in the sport, though there was another factor as well.
The final rekindling occurred on my thirteenth birthday, the summer before I entered eighth grade. This was the day a scale rudely informed me that I weighed 137 pounds. I am 5’4” now, and just about the only person I am taller than is Steve. I was a fat kid and did not like it. I saw how wrestling had transformed my brother’s life and weight, and now I wanted the same. This was almost five and a half years after my broken arm.
From that infamous summer weigh-in when I turned thirteen until wrestling started that November, I lost twenty-two pounds, primarily through diet rather than exercise. I was not using the highly scrutinized method of weight cutting -- taking water out of your body to lower your weight for a short time. Instead, I remember eating cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner on certain days. Though it was an ill-advised idea because the diet lacked essential nutrients, it proved one thing: I had the discipline to deny myself food when necessary. That quality allows wrestlers to get to their lowest possible weight, shedding the useless fat on their bodies. However, our bodies need a certain amount of fat to live and function at their highest potential. At that young age, I did not know that bit of information.
That first year when I returned to wrestling in the eighth grade, I recall that I was not one of the “good kids.” They had been continually wrestling since first grade, unlike myself. They were the ones representing Nutley on the coveted Essex County Team. On the other hand, I only wrestled in tournaments, which is not as important as the dual meets at this age. You had to make the “County Team,” whereas anyone who signed up could enter tournaments. I used my failure to make the “County Team” as an opportunity to develop my own funky style of wrestling and as motivation to work harder.
I was moderately successful my first season back on the mat. I was largely on my own, learning from watching my brother and other great high school wrestlers. In one match towards the end of the season, my opponent was well above my weight. I lost the match. Nonetheless, my opponent’s coach was impressed with how I wrestled and told me so. His words of encouragement inspired me.
The hope of future success kept me in the sport as a thirteen-year-old kid.
This year, the groundwork was laid for all the fruits that wrestling would later bear. Besides learning how to be dedicated and determined, it was easy to see how wrestling draws people of all shapes, sizes, and nationalities together, with one thing binding us -- hard work. As teammates push each other, camaraderie develops. Today, many of my best friends are those I first made through our mutual participation in wrestling. It may be an individual sport, but even the best wrestlers may spoil without good teammates.
Sometime after my eighth-grade season, I decided I wanted to reach the pinnacle of the New Jersey high school wrestling world. I set the goal to become a state champion by my senior year.
What You Can Take Away from Chapter 1:
Figure out what you want from wrestling.
Remember that every setback can be useful in some way.
Always set high goals for yourself.