G-Town Talks

For the last ten hours of this beautiful Saturday, I sat in the gym at Iroquois High School for a wrestling tournament and it was worth every minute of it. Wrestling is, by far, my favorite school sport. Granted, I went to school in Pennsylvania where every boy worth his salt at that time wrestled and carried a can of snuff in his back pocket, so it’s sort of ingrained in my subconscious. Our neighbor, Wayne German, was the wrestling coach at Plum High School and he used to drag me along to the meets. Anyone ever coached by Mr. German knows what the meaning of “heart” is.

There were a ton of wrestlers today and only a handful of parents (not too many want to sit there for 10 hours), but what a terrific day for sportsmanship. Wrestling is an interesting sport because a kid can win individually, even if the team loses. Still, I watched kid after kid run from one mat to the next to watch his teammate’s match. They’re polite and easy to be around. They look out for each other. Real athletes pushing it to the max. Heck, a kid can lose, show a ton of heart and still come off the mat feeling good about himself because he fought hard and gave it 100% until the end.

The moment worth the price of admission came when one of our rookies got his first pin. The grin on the kid’s face when he came up from the mat and the reaction of his teammates were fantastic–brought tears to my eyes. The coach ran himself ragged running from bout to bout, but he never stopped coaching and supporting every kid.

Yeah it was a great way to spend a Saturday, in a smelly gym filled with adolescent boys all treating each other with respect. Win or lose, those kids were as good as it gets today.