With high school wrestling ending for the year, my thoughts returned to my high school senior year competitions. Over half of our varsity wrestling team were seniors—all good friends. But one particularly good friend was also my same weight. It was hard competing against him, knowing only one of us could be varsity.
In all of our first wrestle-offs, I won. I took the 155 slot, so Braden moved up to 167. At our first match, I won, but he didn’t do well. The same was true for our next few meets. As we approached a big tournament, Coach pulled me aside to talk to me.
“Howard,” he said, “I know you will always be able to beat Braden for the 155 spot, but frankly, I think you could also beat everyone at 167. Braden is good, but when he goes up a weight, I think he gets psyched out about wrestling bigger guys, so he loses. You don’t seem to have that problem. Would you consider letting him take the 155 weight?”
“Coach, I don’t even weigh 155,” I replied. “I never lose weight to wrestle. I’d be giving up quite a bit of difference.”
Coach nodded. “I know, and I wouldn’t ask you to do it if I didn’t think you would win.”
I thought about it for a day and considered that I wanted Braden to win, too. The next day, I gave my answer.
“Coach, I really want to win the state championship this year. I will wrestle at 167 until the district meet, but I will want to wrestle at my own weight then.”
Coach agreed that would only be fair. We went to the tournament, and Braden won first, and so did I. I found it more challenging than I had at 155, but that just forced me to work harder.
Braden didn’t have to lose weight to wrestle at 167, but he did have to lose a little for 155. I asked him if that bothered him.
He laughed. “I’d rather lose a little weight and win.”
I never felt it was good for a person to go hungry too often, and I also had to work hard on our farm after practice. The thought of working that hard and being hungry was not for me. But I was one of the few, if not the only, wrestler on the team, that didn’t lose weight. Because of that, I tried to be sensitive to the others. I never ate around them until we all ate together after weigh-ins, and then we ate heartily.
As the season wore on, I beat almost every person I came up against. The few I lost to, I beat the next time we met. That helped me realize how important it was to know my opponents. As we were getting close to time for the district tournament, I told Coach I would be staying at 167. He was happy to hear that, but not nearly as happy as Braden was.
However, before our district and state competitions, there was one more team we had to face. Our two teams were considered the best in the district, and it would likely be a close match. On the day of the match, Coach came to me with a new request.
“Howard, Porter is sick. What would you think of letting our 167 J.V. wrestle in your spot, and you move to 185?”
As the season progressed, I spent extra time lifting weights. I knew I would face unknown opponents at state, and I felt the additional strength and weight couldn’t hurt. However, I still wasn’t topping the 155 mark even with that. I reminded him I needed to be above it to wrestle at 185.
He nodded. “You will have to push yourself to eat more to make it and then throw it up if necessary.”
Braden laughed. “I have never heard of anyone doing that for a match.”
I knew that without a win at 185, our team would probably lose, so I accepted the challenge and started trying to eat all I could for the weigh-in that was just a few hours away.
(To be continued.)
