Participation in athletics is not an option at my school.  All St. Marker’s are required to partake in a Fall, Winter and Spring sport.  I chose to wrestle mainly because my football coach said I “would be unbeatable on two legs.”  I took his advice with high hopes and expectations and lack of knowledge of what lay ahead.  The first thing I learned was that I should have taken up the sport well before the 9th grade.  I also realized that the uniform drastically differed from the one I wore on the gridiron and that all the weight I had purposefully gained during football season would be shed in drastic ways each November throughout my high school years.

 In a matter of weeks I had more or less  mastered the basics and was 1-0 UNDEFEATED after my first match.  I remember traveling home on the bus envisioning my picture in an upcoming issue of Sports Illustrated’s Faces in the Crowd.  And then I lost,  cement mixed and stacked. My two legs were beaten my ego severly bruised yet I vowed to work harder in turn accelerating my progress.

Singing “High Hopes”in the shower while refraining from gulping down the water for fear of not making weight.

That was my freshman year at Saint Marks I am now captain of the wrestling team and am having a undefeated season so far and am hoping to go to nationals. To think that I chose this sport to improve myself in football. Now wrestling has put football on the back burner.