Faint screaming can be heard in the background. Glimpses of hands clapping, and bodies moving but the focus is the middle of the mat. The inner circle, where the match starts, where you will fight until a bone cleanly snaps. You step on the mat, the soft cushion is felt under your heavy feet. Countless days and hours have been spent trying to physically and mentally prepare you for this moment.

The chill that flows down your spine, as you walk to the middle of the mat. What feels like hundreds of pairs of eyes, staring at you in the middle of the mat. The fear of losing rushes through your head. After all the hours of practice there is only thing going around your mind –  “What if I lose?”.

Suddenly those countless amount of time is being questioned, but before you could even evaluate your thoughts the referee had already blown their whistle, and the match is starting.

In ten years, nobody’s going to  remember the number on the jersey you wore, or how fast you ran in track. In wrestling, the only thing that is remembered is the name that represents you.  The name that was given to you when you were born, is the name that will be talked about years later when you’re not even wrestling in high school.

Wrestling can be looked at as a individual or team sport. Even though you’re wrestling alone on the mat, you can benefit the team you’re on by winning and earning points for the team. In a match with your team, each win declares a certain amount of points awarded, and at the end of the meet or tournament, whichever team that has the most points wins the event.

Today, wrestlers come from various backgrounds. Some have wrestled their entire life, however others have joined wrestling their freshman year, and have stuck with it. The diversity in wrestling is unique, and it is different then other sports in many occasions. Nevertheless, the sport will push anybody to their absolute physical limit. Some wrestlers never take a break, meaning that during the school holidays, and summer they’re still wrestling in events throughout the country.

The blood and sweat that can go into wrestling is immeasurable. The toughest six minutes is spent within a match of wrestling. Most wrestlers also do a secondary sport, however the most popular is football. Wrestling and football can be similar and different. Within a match in wrestling, unlike football, there is a short 10 second period between the the first and second period.

With having small breaks, the only way to save yourself from the grueling six minutes of punishment, is to win by pin within a period. By doing so the match will end, and you won’t have to wrestle through everything.

Wrestling can teach somebody many things you can’t learn anywhere else. Wrestling has taught many that no matter how much you prepare for a match, defeat may sometimes be inevitable. However, it also teaches us to keep going and to push through the harder times.