James the Wrestler

I experienced a wave of courage and decided to investigate James's back pack recently and I found a paper that answered questions like: What is my favorite activity? What am I good at? What do I think about a lot?  The answer to all questions was: wrestling. 2016 was the first year that James wrestled competitively.  While he only won a few matches, he learned a lot from each match.  One of my favorite wrestling expressions is: I never lose, either I win or I learn.  I would never have guessed that we would be so involved in wrestling, but despite the five minutes of heart-wrenching emotion that I go through while watching the boys wrestle physically and mentally, wrestling has been a good experience for all in the family.

Here are a few pictures of James's 2016 season:

James got second place in one of the round robin tournaments for his weight. We were pretty excited about that!

Because we have been involved with league wrestling for four years now and are familiar with the coaches, they offered James the opportunity to wrestle with the Jr. High team.  He wrestled in some of the home meets and a few of the away meets when there was an opponent in his weight class.  He fought hard in all of his matches, though was not as successful as he had hoped.

My favorite match of his season was against the South Davis team.  South Davis had a boy named Max who had Downs Syndrome who practiced with their team.  James was asked to wrestle him and take care to not hurt him.  James was a willing opponent.

The match ran over time as they tumbled together and ran through many moves.  In the end Max pinned James.  Afterward, Coach Larsen came up to him and told him that that match was probably the hardest match he will ever have to wrestle.  To go through moves carefully and make it a contest and accept loss, is not what wrestling is about.  James said afterward that if he could either beat Max and have at least one win under his belt for the season and have everybody hate him, or he could lose the match and have everybody like him.  He chose wisely.  I may have shed a few tears.

James went to all the practices and was treated like he was a team member even though he didn't actually attend Jr. High since he was still in 6th grade.  It was good preparation for next year!