Wrestling Reflections

Wrestling Reflection Suraj Patel - 2019

5/21/2019

Wrestling had been one of the most challenging and yet rewarding years of my life and without a doubt I would do it all over again. To anyone who reads this and had any doubts about whether they should keep on wrestling or if they should take it up, give it a chance. I will admit that not everyone will like it and it may not be for them, but they will always come out a better person if they give it everything they have. Wrestling doesn’t just teach you mental toughness, it teaches you life lessons. It teaches you that not everything is easy in life and somethings you have to work you ass off for. It also teaches you that not everything will go your way and you will not always win. The only thing you can do is recover and learn from your past and make the best of it. You also learn that there is no worse feeling than not trying. It may feel good in the moment but in the long run, you will have regret. It also taught me that change and improving in ANYTHING will take time. It will take dedication and sacrifice. But if you are truly wanting to get better at something that you are passionate about, everything will be worth it in the end as long as you have a plan and you stick to it.
Wrestling is not just a sport to me, it’s a time in my life where I had the most friends and the biggest bonds with people I ever had. I don’t see my team as just my teammates, I see them as family because we have been through hell and back in that wrestling room, from Coach Millers plate workouts to groups of four to the long speeches we would listen to in that wrestling room. It was a place where we all had the same goals, to be better as a team and improve ourselves so we can be more useful for the team. Wrestling teaches you that the team is more important than the individual, but as an individual you have to do everything you can for your team if you ever want to have success.
The lessons that I have learned in wrestling will give me a head start and an advantage over many other people just like Coach Bass always says. Wrestlers are seen as the best of the best because of they relationships they are able to make with people and the work ethic that is commonly seen among most wrestlers. There is a reason why wrestlers are able to get the job done better than anyone else, it’s because they are used to the grind and the mental fatigue which “normal” people are not used to. Wrestling also teaches you time management skills because you have to balance out your extracurriculars with your academic or professional life. These are also very important skills that will be needed in the future when preparing for the real world, whether you like it or not. Wrestling will not necessarily get you to where you want to be in life, but it will definitely will help along the way.

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Short Story About Wrestling (Allyn Jackson - 1971)

4/21/2017

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I was asked to wrestle after the season started in my senior year 1971. The heavyweight weight class was available with no one big enough to do it .I was an ok football player playing defensive and offensive tackle on the varsity for 3 years. I never considered wrestling and had no experience. How hard could 6 minutes be? Quite a few of my good friends were on the team and they were having a good year. I got beat up pretty well in practice by guys like Ralph Terrel who was smaller than me but was very strong and was coming into his own after wrestling for quite a few years. I believe Mr Broderick and Mr. Lauver were the coaches. After a few weeks of practice they had nobody else so they put me in. I think that the weight class was optional at the time and may not have counted in the score. So the big kid from East Quogue is now wrestling. Well I did not do very well and did not get too many matches. As I recall thinking, this sport is HARD. No time to rest like football. No place to hide as it is you and the other guy. Again I do not want to pretend to be a poser as everybody on the team knew the sport and put in their dues over numerous seasons, but I liked it. In a miracle almost as big as the olympic hockey team, I somehow managed to win a match in the leagues and made it into the county tournament. I got killed, but would never give up the experience for the world. I went on to be unlimited for 2 years at Bethany College in West Virginia where I looked up at many lights at numerous small colleges in the area. I found out what unlimited was, as I wrestled some really big guys that made me, at 250 pounds, look very small. I look back at wrestling as something that helped me greatly as an adult. It helped me to stick to something even if it was very hard and discouraging. Working with a small team full of individuals was different from football as it really came down to you to perform. The others on the team could support you, but could do nothing to help once the match started. I did find one good thing about wrestling unlimited in college. On road trips, all teams get meal money. I was one of the few guys that loved this as I never had to make weight and got to enjoy eating as much as I wanted, at the colleges expense, while most of my team mates could not. Looking back, I never could have thought that the 3 years that I participated in this strange sport would have helped me so much, but they did.

Allyn Jackson
Class of 1971

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What wrestling means to me - Over a year later (Connor Glynn - 2016)

3/15/2017

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Westhampton Beach wrestling gave me the opportunity to become a part of something greater than myself. It gave me a purpose and a meaning during my high school years. It was a lifestyle, a distraction, a safe haven, and a classroom all in one. But, in the class that is wrestling, you learn about life in all types of ways, good and bad.
        In ninth grade, I was out to dinner with my parents at Squiretown in Hampton Bays. My high school sports career was a hot topic of conversation. Playing Football and being a one sport athlete, at something I was not very good at, just wasn't enough. I didn’t understand that at the time, but my dad clearly did. So as I sat there crying in front of an entire restaurant, hoping that the dim lighting would hide my tears, my dad showed no mercy. It became very clear that I would soon be a new wrestler for Westhampton Beach. I highly doubt my dad had any clue what he was getting me involved in, but I am extremely grateful that he did.
    Fast forward a few months to another freshman year crying instance. This time it was outside of Immaculate Conception Parrish Center in Westhampton. It was a Wednesday night in January, around 7 PM if I remember correctly, and my dad was dropping me off at religion class. As I went to get out of the car I started crying. I couldn’t do it, I had to go back. Westhampton Beach was wrestling the #3 ranked team in the state, Rocky Point, in what was the most hype wrestling match I’ve ever seen. Hell, it could have been Penn State vs. Iowa in that gym between the media, notoriously loud Rocky Point parents, and sets of bleachers packed with WHB students and fans. From around the county people came to watch perennial powerhouse Rocky Point secure a league VI championship. Even MSG varsity showed up to film the match. At religion we had a strict attendance policy, but I quickly convinced my dad to bring me back to the gym. Weird how things change, a few months ago I was crying about being “forced” to wrestle, and by the middle of my first season I was crying because I had been fully engulfed in the world of Westhampton Beach Wrestling, and nobody was going to remove me from it.
    That 2013 team was the greatest sports team that I have ever been apart of, and nobody will ever be that team. They had something that you can’t coach. I’m not even sure someone would want what they had. Yeah they were league champs, but the things that made those kids so amazing were tragedies. They were the best, but they paid a heavy price to be the best. When that dual meet against Rocky Point ended, the class of 2013 automatically became legends. They engraved their legacy into Westhampton Beach, and just like every senior class before them, they were gone shortly after. What remains is some paint on a wall, sharpie in a basement, words on a banner, and the memories.
    What this sport is all about is the legacy. When it’s all set and done, who or what have you made a mark on? Is it the league, county, or state tournament? Is it the wrestling banner hanging in the gym? Or is it the freshman you pointed in the right direction when he was trying to find himself early on? It’s ironic how it takes four matches to win a state tournament. It’s similar to the four years to get through high school. Every match is a stepping stone to the next one. That’s why you take it one match, or one year at a time. Focus on now, not next year, not next match, because before you know it, everything comes to an end. Ferris Bueller said it and I’ll say it again: Life moves pretty quick, if you don’t stop and look around every once in a while you might miss it. What you're doing now is what you're going to be remembered for. The relationships you develop, the goals you achieve, and the mistakes you make now are what you carry into the future. So if wrestling has taught me anything about life, it is to enjoy what you are doing now. And if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it big because in life there’s not enough time to go halfway on things. Take things one match at a time, go balls to the wall, and HAVE FUN.
    It’s pretty weird how easily things that are so important in life can just slip away. The stability around you, the things that make you who you are can all vanish so quickly. My high school wrestling career taught me about loss before I had to deal with it myself. I saw kids just like me, that sat in the same seats as me and walked the same halls as me, be put in situations that are hard for full-grown adults to overcome. I had seen my entire community capsize over the loss of people who had a profound impact on almost everything around us. But I also saw the resiliency. I saw how people took their grief and their sadness and channeled it to honor the ones we’ve lost in amazing ways. I saw how the Hubbard’s took the tragic loss of their son and built an amazing organization that is backed by an entire community. I saw how that 2013 team took the mat against teams that they weren't supposed to have a shot with and just used their experiences to give them the determination and strength to take it to whoever was across from them. I know it may seem like I’m making a group of high schoolers, similar to many others, seem like they are greater than god. But, from my perspective in 9th grade and even a little bit now, I can tell you that what that group had taught me that in life bad things are going to happen. It’s all about how resilient you are. It’s about how hard you fight back, what you do next, and how you learn and grow.
    On the Christmas Eve of my freshman year we had practice just like every other Christmas Eve. It was not long after the Center Moriches Duals and Bass had a long list of complaints for what was an excellent team. One of those complaints stood out to me as it was heavily conveyed during suicides was that we weren’t to show any emotion on the mat: no anger, happiness, funny faces, complaining to the refs, nothing. Bass was referring to how Alex Tanzman made a funny face to our bench as he routed Steven Lee, his county finals opponent from the year before. It didn't matter that Alex was the returning county champ and top ranked wrestler. Making a funny face while tearing up an all-state wrestler would not stand on his team. And that right there showed me that the little things matter. Bass knew he had an awesome team, but if they were going to be champions they were going to have to do the little things right. When you are able to do the little things right the big things should fall into place.
    Life is made up of milestones. Sometimes a milestone can be the beginning of a new chapter in life, or it is just the end of another. At the end of a chapter it is important to look back upon where it has taken you and the people you have met along the way. The memories that you make are carried into the future through the relationships that you make. Once it’s all over I believe it is important to take the values that the sport teaches you and apply it to your life in some type of way. Whether it’s the ideals of a brotherhood to fight for each other, and help your fellow brother up even when he falls. Wrestling gave me a circle of trust that I relied on heavily throughout high school, and I will have with me for many years.
    My junior and senior years are two that I will never forget. I was able to do some amazing things on and off the mat, surrounded by people who I cared for, and who cared for me. The greatness and legacy that my team carried with us those two years lied within our work ethic, our actions off the mat, the way we stepped up against kids 20x better than us, the way we wrestled for each other, and the way that we were a true BROTHERHOOD. Westhampton Beach Wrestling is a family, and as the shirts say, tradition never graduates.
    Every family has a core, something that holds it together no matter what. Ours was Coach Bass. He bought into us when we were freshman far more than we bought into him. So from all of us, thank you for everything you’ve done, and everything you continue to do for us. And for those who are still blessed with the opportunity to make memories wrestling, I have some advice: Work hard to achieve as much as you possibly can, form relationships that will never fall apart, and build YOUR legacy. Because when it's all set and done the legacy is what you and others have to look back on. So do whatever you can to build your legacy, because looking back, I am beyond proud of my legacy and the people who helped me create it.

Connor Glynn
Class of 2016

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