Be Someone Important

By Katie Downing

Wrestling is a sport of individuals.  The success of each wrestler ultimately lies in his or her own hands.  Everyone has opportunities in the sport to be someone important individually; opportunities to rise to the top.  Wrestling is also a team sport because no one can rise to the top without good partners, good teammates, and a good sense of team. Everyone also has opportunities to be someone important to teammates, and to the team.

Ten years ago during my freshman year of high school, I went to my first pre-season conditioning wrestling practice.  I didn’t know what to expect from the practice other than pain.  Practice was early in the morning before school, so I chose a healthy breakfast of Cheerios and orange juice (a tidbit of information that will become important later in the story).  When I got to practice, I saw some of the most cut up guys I had ever seen in my life, some guys who desperately needed conditioning if they ever hoped to make it through the season, and a few rare guys like Nate Foster.

Nate was going into his senior year in high school a long-limbed, lanky middle weight with lots of enthusiasm and few wrestling titles.  In fact, he hadn’t yet broken into the varsity lineup.  Nate was an artist, a creative fun loving guy that everyone liked having on the team even though he never raked in many team points.  I fondly remember spending more than one Saturday finding ways to pass the time with Nate and a few other guys when we’d lost two matches, sending us to the sideline for the rest of the day.  But I don’t want to jump too far ahead of myself--back to conditioning, that weeding out process that determined those who would have what it took to wrestle with the team for the season. 

We didn’t have a lot of time before school, so Coach cut to the chase.  He put us through sprints, push-ups, sprints, sit-ups, sprints, buddy carries, sprints, sprints, and more sprints.  Do you remember the Cheerios and OJ?  Well, during the final set of “max and relax” sprinting and jogging, I threw them up.  I lost all of breakfast, and probably some of the last night’s dinner along with it.  When Coach told us sprints were over, I was incapable of mustering anything more than relief that it was behind me.  Then he told us to run the cross country course.  There was no way!  I couldn’t imagine making it down to the locker room, much less through a trek in the woods.  Either way, we all took off: Nate up with the front of the pack at a quick jog, and me back with the slugs at an I-might-as-well-just-get-on-all-fours-and-drag-myself pace.  Then even the slugs left me behind.  I was left alone to watch each blade of grass as it slowly passed beneath my trudging feet of lead.  I quickly began to wonder with each step if I would be able to put my foot in front of the other even a few inches. 

    After an eternity of debate among my mind, heart, feet, and the grass, I looked up and saw Nate Foster jogging back in my direction.  At first I wondered if there was a U-turn at one end of the course, or if something had happened up ahead.  Then I realized that Nate was coming back to run with me.  My initial reaction was embarrassment that anyone else would witness my pathetic pace.  Then I realized it was much better to have someone else there to go through the challenge with me.  I told Nate that I didn’t think I could finish the whole course.  He simply said, “You can.”  Anything else that we may have said, I can’t recall from the mush that my mind had become.  Nate probably could have turned around and jogged backward the rest of the way and still kept up with me, but he refused to leave or to let me stop.  I needed him to be there to help me just to finish the course.  Neither of us could have known that our run was the beginning of a wrestling career that could take me around the world, but Nate knew he could help me get my feet underneath me that very first day.  Nate didn’t know me at all before that year, and had no external incentive to help me like that.  Maybe he understood and empathized with what it felt like to be struggling at the back of the pack, or maybe it was something else.  We never did talk about the reason he came back to run with me, but I will never forget that simple and powerful act that meant so much to the teammate that struggled the most just to keep up.  Nate never was a wrestling star, but he made a far bigger impact on me than the captain of the team could have at that time.  Every wrestler has the opportunity to be someone important to his or her teammates.  No matter where you stand in the order on your team when it comes to skill, experience, strength or success, look for the openings to be someone important.