During my abbreviated sophomore season of eligibility, I finally overcame my shattered dream of not winning a New Jersey state championship. The absence from the sport refreshed my love for it. I had a new goal -- to become a Division III national champion. In my first season back on the mat, I assumed that goal would be a stretch. By this time, I had not wrestled competitively in almost two years.
At my opening competition of the season, I watched Luis Felix, our 157-pound wrestler, for the first time when he was taken down to his back. Felix looked directly at our bench as we screamed at him to get off his back. He just smiled and kept chewing his gum as if he did not have a care in the world. Twenty seconds later, he flipped his opponent over and stuck him for the fall.
The night before the New England duals, one of my new teammates, Nick, went to another team member’s house and took the team scale. Since no one was home, Nick wrote a note explaining he had the scale, a commendable thing to do. The message said, in effect, that he was having weight issues and needed the scale to make sure he was on weight in the morning. The only problem was he decided to write this note on the front door, with a permanent marker.
As we were getting skin checked for the tournament the following day, Nick told Coach Jones he was overweight.
Coach asked, “How much? Half a pound?”
Nick moved his head slowly left to right and responded, “four.”
“Four-tenths is nothing, Nick,” Coach Jones replied. “Start running.”
“No,” Nick said. “I’m four pounds over.”
Our captain at the time, Todd Bloom, said with an expressionless face, “Well Nick, did you check all the scales?”
Many funny moments happen during any wrestling season, which proved true again. Even though wrestling is a serious sport, many good times come from it. I learned in high school that if you never have any fun, you will not last long as an elite athlete. The funny moments usually center around your teammates.
After Nick’s weight fiasco, I beat the second-ranked New England wrestler, Andrew Lacroix. The following week, he bounced back in our rematch, blemishing my 10-0 record. I lost because he turned me to my back, which was always very hard to accept.
I went into the NECCWA Championships as the three seed with a 14-1 record. It set up a third match with Lacroix in the semifinals, the biggest stage of my season, where I faltered again. This time I remembered past lessons, and I looked for the good in the situation. I noticed something valuable from the loss. I was getting in on my shots easily but could not finish them. I realized that this was because I rarely finished my shots to the mat in practice. I made it my mission to drill my moves all the way the following season to correct the glitch in my wrestling.
Despite the loss in the semifinals the way the New England brackets are set up, I was still alive to win the tournament.
In a match to see who would wrestle the loser of the first finals, I faced Mike Conklin. He was a wrestler whom I had beaten as a freshman by eight points, and I completely looked past him to my potential rematch with Lacroix. The match started with Conklin catching me off guard and taking me down with a double leg. I fought my way back and did not mentally count myself out. With thirty seconds left, the match was tied. I took a shot, got in, and hesitated again. He had enough time to react and get behind me for the takedown. My season was over with a fourth-place finish at the conference championships. Gaeta lost to Lacroix in the first finals but then came back to beat Conklin and Lacroix twice, for his third New England title in as many years.
As I had done during all my previous seasons, I wrote a match-by-match summary. As I re-read it, I noticed the only lesson to take away was putting the responsibility of losing on your shoulders. I gave wrestlers credit for beating me, but I knew that every match I lost was winnable. If I had written “I lost to a better wrestler, and there was nothing I could do,” then guess what? I would never beat that guy. I realized that when I lost a match, there was a reason for it, regardless of the score, and if I could correct my mistakes, I would win next time.
After that season, one of our assistant coaches, Scott Baum, departed from the team. What I admired about Coach Baum was his honesty. He often told us, “I was not the best wrestler, but I worked as hard as I could and made the most of my God-given talents.” That is what he expected of us, and that is what I strove to do.
What You Can Take Away from Chapter 6:
Never overlook anyone as every opponent is dangerous and can beat you on any day.
Take responsibility for your losses. Figure out what went wrong and fix it.
Drill your moves to the mat more often than not.