During my junior year of high school, one of my friends who wrestled for the school talked me into joining the team. I knew nothing about the sport, but decided to join the team anyway. I bought myself wrestling shoes and headgear and went to the first wrestling practice of the season. The wrestling room reeked of sweat and was relatively small. An old maroon rubber mat covered the entire floor, just as dirt covered all the windows. I put my wrestling shoes on and started practice. Within the first few minutes, I quickly learned something about myself: I was terrible at wrestling. I had absolutely no idea what to do and spent most of the practice getting thrown around by my teammates. Wrestling also is, to this day, the hardest and
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I was absolutely dreading this day because, for varsity matches, only one person in each weight class is allowed to wrestle. Our varsity wrestler for the weight class I was in was injured so I had to wrestle in the varsity match. As I stepped out onto the mat for the first time, I looked over and began analyzing my opponent: a shaved head, tattoo covered arms, and 200 pounds of solid muscle. What did I get myself into? Here I am about to wrestle in my first match against someone who looked like an ex-convict. I kept trying to calm myself down, but nothing was working. We both shook hands, got in our stances, and the ref blew the whistle to start the match. Neither of us were able to pin each other and at the end of the third period, the ref ended the match. I looked up at the scoreboard and could not believe what I saw; I had scored the most points. I felt the ref grab my arm and raise it to indicate that I was the winner. I had just won my first …show more content…
We all called him Tarzan, behind his back of course, because of his uncanny resemblance to the wild man that was raised in the jungle. He had a large muscular body, long brown hair, tan skin, and was extremely athletic. Tarzan was a very intense person and was very passionate about sports and fitness. He was a state qualifying wrestler in high school and played football in college. He was even signed by the Indianapolis Colts to play football in the NFL but was let go due to injury. Since he excelled greatly in sports, Tarzan always had unrealistic expectations for us and pushed us to work unreasonably beyond our physical capabilities. Even after winning a match, he would still criticize me on how ‘ugly’ my wrestling was. To add to that, after a year of being on the wrestling team with him, he never even bothered to learn my name. So, it is safe to say that he and I did not see eye to
I was absolutely dreading this day because, for varsity matches, only one person in each weight class is allowed to wrestle. Our varsity wrestler for the weight class I was in was injured so I had to wrestle in the varsity match. As I stepped out onto the mat for the first time, I looked over and began analyzing my opponent: a shaved head, tattoo covered arms, and 200 pounds of solid muscle. What did I get myself into? Here I am about to wrestle in my first match against someone who looked like an ex-convict. I kept trying to calm myself down, but nothing was working. We both shook hands, got in our stances, and the ref blew the whistle to start the match. Neither of us were able to pin each other and at the end of the third period, the ref ended the match. I looked up at the scoreboard and could not believe what I saw; I had scored the most points. I felt the ref grab my arm and raise it to indicate that I was the winner. I had just won my first …show more content…
We all called him Tarzan, behind his back of course, because of his uncanny resemblance to the wild man that was raised in the jungle. He had a large muscular body, long brown hair, tan skin, and was extremely athletic. Tarzan was a very intense person and was very passionate about sports and fitness. He was a state qualifying wrestler in high school and played football in college. He was even signed by the Indianapolis Colts to play football in the NFL but was let go due to injury. Since he excelled greatly in sports, Tarzan always had unrealistic expectations for us and pushed us to work unreasonably beyond our physical capabilities. Even after winning a match, he would still criticize me on how ‘ugly’ my wrestling was. To add to that, after a year of being on the wrestling team with him, he never even bothered to learn my name. So, it is safe to say that he and I did not see eye to