A Toast to the Men and Women in the Arena

Today is the final day of the high school wrestling season here in New Jersey.  By the time you get ready to wind your clock ahead one hour in anticipation of the arrival of Daylight Savings Time, state champions will be crowned in the fourteen weight classes in which boys wrestle and in the eleven weight classes in which the girls wrestle. 

Margaret and I have not ventured to Atlantic City to watch the state high school wrestling championships since her nephew, Frank, was a senior at Middlesex High School a decade or so ago.  Over the span of four or five years, we actually traveled to Atlantic City three times to watch the state championships.  Frank's older brother, Joe, made it to Atlantic City in his senior year.  Joe made the most of his one trip to the Boardwalk, placing 6th in the 189-pound weight class.  Frank, who is four years younger than his big brother, made back-to-back trips to Atlantic City as a junior and as a senior. 

A lifetime or two ago - when I was a high school freshman - I was a truly dreadful high school wrestler.  It was an experience that was not simply humbling but humiliating.  So much so that after having been annihilated by almost every opponent fortunate enough to have me on his schedule during my freshman year, I hung up my headgear.  I never wrestled again.  No amount of begging by the other kids in my weight class or their parents persuaded me to continue my career.  

I admire and applaud the twenty-five boys and girls who shall have a hand raised this afternoon as the state champion in their weight class.  I admire and applaud each wrestler who attains a podium finish.  I admire, applaud, and respect the hell out of every kid whose season began in this past autumn but ended somewhere short of the season's final day.  

Wrestling, much like swimming, is a sport that does not afford a corner in which its participants can go stand and watch as a more talented teammate(s) carries the team on her or his shoulders.  It takes courage to stand up, to step into the spotlight, and give it your all, knowing all the while the uncertainty of the outcome.   

-AK