I just want to wrestle

Yesterday, on my way home, I stopped to put gas in my car. I like to pay at the pump because it's convenient. However, that convenience is often interrupted by a plethora of decisions. Do you want a receipt? Do you want a car wash? Are you using debit or credit? Do you want to purchase three Glazers doughnuts for $1? Do you want to make a UNICEF donation? Every time the answer is "no." I just want gas.

Too many times I see high school athletes choose to walk away from the sport they once loved because it becomes about everything except that sport. We lose wrestlers almost daily because they don't want to cut weight, their coach doesn't understand them (or chooses not to know them), practices are boring, they're on junior varsity, etc. The reasons seem to be never ending. The tragedy is that I can't recall a time when someone said they just didn't want to wrestle. Sure, they didn't want anything to do with the stuff around wrestling, but wrestling itself is seldom the reason.

What I know about me is that I love the sport of wrestling. I love the ins-and-outs, the strategy, the grind, the technique...everything. Most people who choose the sport, however, just want to wrestle. If I want a successful program, I cannot forget that.

I do my best to remember this simple thought when I begin practice each day. Just like I don't want to be bogged down by so many decisions at the pump when all I want is gas, it's imperative that I don't bog down the sport of wrestling when athletes just want to wrestle.

The analogy is quite simple and there is obviously a need for the "other stuff" in sports, but don't miss the point. I know youth wrestlers who come to practice expecting to wrestle and all they do is learn new techniques. Let them wrestle. I know high school athletes who focus moment by moment on making weight. They're on the wrestling team, not the weight cutting team. If you were ever to ask me what I want in this sport, I just want to wrestle.