Gifted Athlete

The guy who wrestled varsity in front of me in high school ended up second at the state tournament. He was a gifted wrestler. He had moves that he threw so quickly that I had no idea what he had just done to me. I don’t know if it was a move I knew, and knew how to counter, or not. It was done so quickly that it was over before I could identify the move. He had a sense of balance and body presence; knew which way was up and down at all times, most importantly when he was in the middle of a move which required him to roll or spin upside down, and knew where you were in midair.

The best part of my classmate’s gift was his confidence. He knew he was good. He was confident he would win. Regrettably that confidence led him not to work at it, but let’s belabor that point later. He was not afraid to throw moves at guys. He was sure if this one move failed he could counter the other guy’s counter move, and win points with his own move. You have to be brave and bold to win at wrestling. You cannot care whether you give up a point, or a couple points, or throw a move badly. You cannot care ultimately whether you win or lose. It has to be all balls to the wall and don’t give a damn what happens or what anyone might say about it from the beginning to the very end. I am talking balls here, big brass ones.

As much as I admired my classmate’s wrestling and athletic ability, I hated his work ethic. How could God grant him such a wonderful gift when he was so lazy in developing it? I wanted so badly to possess what he had, and he was wasting it. I practiced with him a few times and he spent most of the time avoiding anything that resembled effort. He did the bare minimum. Lying around on the mat doing nothing seemed to be his favorite pastime. I hoped to learn what he knew, but I suspect that he knew very little. He was a natural, that’s all. I could have been better, and he could have been better by our working together, but frankly, he was a waste of my time. I was never going to beat him without wrestling him in practice and learning his moves, but since he did nothing in practice and thereby kept whatever he did know secret, he would always beat me with his natural ability.

I was a decent wrestler in practice. I could beat my athletically gifted classmate in practice once, but I could not beat him the two out of three times necessary to make the varsity. I could beat all of the JV guys in my weight class, and all of the JV guys in the weight class above me, and all of the JV guys in the weight class below me. I just (Yeah, just. If she had balls she’d be king. That variety of “just”.) I just (There is that word again, “just”, like, is that all that is holding you back?) could not beat the varsity guy at my weight, or the varsity guy in the weight class above, or the varsity guy at the weight class below. Adding or losing weight wasn’t going to improve matters a bit.

Though I have pointed out my classmate’s gifts, the real cause of my failure was mine. I beat me. I was passive. I was scared. I was a coward. I was afraid. I was afraid of failure and I was afraid of my father’s criticism. That isn’t Dad’s fault. That is MY fault as a teenager. My excuse is I had a wimpy teenage brain and psyche trapped in a teenage body. How I wish I could go back and do it all over again. I was fine in practice. Practice was a safe place. I was fine as a junior varsity wrestler. Nobody notices or cares what happens on the JV squad. But in my too few varsity matches, when my athletically gifted but academically challenged colleague was academically ineligible, I would shoot for a take-down on a guy’s legs and not finish the move. I’d just hold onto his legs in a death grip until the ref called a stalemate. The other guy couldn’t score a point and neither could I. Nothing good could happen, but better yet, nothing BAD could happen either. Of course my dad later criticized me for shooting on the guys legs and not finishing the move. I should have known. I did not say my choices made any logical sense. I was a teenager and logical thinking was in short supply.

If I am going to be the least bit honest in these musings, and I am not sure that I am up to being completely honest at all, I was afraid of my gifted classmate. My classmate was a young angry black man. This was a mostly white high school in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and the time was the late 1960’s when the civil rights movement was at its peak. I did not understand all that was going on at that time, but I did understand that he did not like me one little bit. I’d like to think it wasn’t me personally that he didn’t like. I’d like to think he just disliked WASPS and what they represented to him during that era. I don’t recall ever doing anything that would anger him other than trying to win his varsity slot and trying to make him work in practice. Anyway, he seemed to hate me and I was completely intimidated by this athletically talented angry young black man. An intimidated wrestler is not going to win. I lost two out of three to him, regularly.

Several years later I received news that my classmate had been convicted of murder.