Life lessons from my son

My son Gregory is an 11th grader at STEM and he wrestles for Downingtown West.  Yesterday was their biggest rivalry, Downingtown East vs. Downingtown West.  Both programs have been excellent over the years and both have outstanding coaching.  West lost 36-65 last night and Coach was not happy.  Gregory got pinned, his girlfriend finally got to see him wrestle, and afterwards he was happy, upbeat, and positive.

While my other son is artistic, extroverted, and creative, Gregory is introverted, competitive, tough as nails, with a high threshold for pain.  When he was ten, a large dog chomped his arm right before we left his friend’s house. We rushed him to Urgent Care as his forearm swelled up like a balloon.  However, after we left, it was 15 minutes later before Greg finally mentioned that the dog bit him.

Greg doesn’t eat for a day or two before matches to make weight and never complains.  I asked him on the morning of his last match if he’d eaten the day before and he said yes, “I had a hash brown.”  He was so sore today after his big match he could barely function.  He never accepts Motrin but he did this morning – and it didn’t help.  He called me twice at school and asked if it was OK if he did calisthenics instead of wrestle at practice today because he was having trouble raising his arms.

So why was Gregory so happy?  He wrestled East’s #1 kid who’s been successful at States.  Lucas at times wrestled up 3 weight classes because he’s that good and can help his team by doing so.  Greg fought him harder than I’ve ever seen anyone wrestle in my life.  He was virtually pinned 3x and refused to give up.  He was down on the scoreboard, should have been exhausted, and in the third period was the absolute aggressor before getting countered on a take down attempt and pinned.  He looked forward all year to wresting Lucas (think Shute in Vision Quest) and he gave it 100%, leaving nothing in reserve.

That’s all there is folks.  That’s life.  If you do what Greg did last night you have done everything possible.  You won’t always succeed but, a lot of the time you’ll reach heights you never knew were possible. Greg worked his butt off preparing for this match and he gave it 100% from start to finish against a great wrestler.  Three ex-coaches approached him afterwards to express how impressed they were.  My son Kenny told me multiple kids were telling him about Greg’s match in school today (trust me, nobody talks about wrestling matches the next day, especially when you lose).  You can watch the match on my Facebook page, it starts at 52:00.  I am so proud.