Wrestling is a great sport and I have been involved since high school as a mat maid, my younger brother being a state qualifier in Iowa and my oldest wrestling. Garett is my baby and I was looking forward to his last two years.
You know you’re a wrestling parent when: Beyonce sings about all the “single ladies” and you hear “all the single legs” and wonder why Beyonce has a song out about wrestling?…The smell of wrestling shoes brings back memories of matches rather than makes you sick to your stomach (ok, it might make you sick to your stomach as well)…You know more about rashes than your doctor.
See for yourself in this video why being on this team with this coach is an extraordinary experience for the young men on the team, including all three of my sons. Coach Powell talks about the coaches, the Oak Park-River Forest High School Huskies wrestling team, recent 2010 grad Charlie Johnson, and how any man can be extraordinary. Listen to senior Brian Toldeo talk about how wrestling changed his life. Watch Chris Ellis embrace Coach Powell. And maybe you can understand why it is about much more than wrestling.
It’s Saturday night and I have the rare opportunity to do whatever I want. My three sons are all young adults and elsewhere at this point in their lives. You might think I’d pull out that romance novel I’ve been looking forward to (yes, I know they are trashy, but I love them) or put on a chick flick I haven’t been able to watch.
But no, I have a better guilty pleasure in mind, wrestling.
For a few years when the boys were small I went out to eat on Mother’s Day with them, paid the hefty brunch prices and basked in the boys’ adoration, even if they did keep asking the waiter to refill the bread basket so many times he was deeply annoyed. I felt as a single [...]
From where I was now standing , I could see Colin unconscious, completely immobile, out. In my mind’s eye, in that future scary place I go to and have gone to since they were daredevil toddlers, I saw him paralyzed. Forever. I saw him in a wheelchair, 30 years old. I saw me pushing him, I saw his life changed from this very second. But it was just a bad thought. It did not come true.
I have read a lot of comments about the new book, “Battle Hymn of The Tiger Mother.” And this is what I think. It takes a big parent to admit her reach is limited. It takes a realistic mother to understand that it is not optimal to have your influence over your child be so enormous that it shapes everything the child does or hopes to become. I do my best. I strongly suggest. I mandate. I insist. But I do not believe parenting is meant to be a battle. And the battle hymn we sing as parents should be a song that is inspirational, uplifting and not just noise in the background.
This is a wrestling story…but with a twist. I won’t pretend I “accidentally” got involved; wrestling is a way of life for my town; the town of Grundy, Virginia. Not much of a town is left, the Army Corp of Engineers decided to move our town so we are left with a huge rock cliff [...]
The five and a half hour ride to Cedar Falls, Iowa for the 2010 USA Wrestling Preseason Nationals was not anywhere near as much fun as the ride home. On Friday, October 29, Coach Mike Powell drove four OPRF wrestlers in his SUV, while Caryn Brooks and I followed with four more wrestlers in her [...]
OPRFHS 2009 graduate Jake Venerable talks about what Coach Mike Powell means to him and why he came back to the varsity wrestling team after leaving for a year. And why this group of teammates who shared “blood, sweat and tears” will be his friends for life.
Do you know how much your child weighs down to the ounce? Do you avoid making eye contact with your child after he or she loses a match until your child approaches you? Do you find yourself wearing the school colors every day whether or not you are attending a meet or tournament?
Then you're a WMD. A Wrestling Mom or Dad.
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