Lots-of-Crying-Boyz

Did you know the wrestling is pretty big in Iowa? Well... not sure you'd guess that, but it is! Most of my brothers wrestled through/into High School. My uncles were all about it too. These days, my uncle Andy puts on this Wrestling Tournament in Richfield (2 hrs south of Provo) every January (or February). I've gone to help him a a few years here and there, last time I went was 2006, right after I met Seth for the first time. He came with me and some relatives for the FULL day event, and we were still getting to know each other. We were in the super flirty, 'I think I like him a lot' stages. I know... special huh?

So this year Andy was calling for serious help. We got down to Richfield last night and set up the arena for a bit. Here are a few pictures of that... the mats were laid out but we arranged the tables, time clocks, put tape on the mats. We tried to have fun with it all too... Lynae and Tyler practiced their wrestling skills on each other. And everyone grabbed their own roll of tape, stood in a line, and rolled them to see who could get their roll of tape closest to the edge of the mat (w/o it rolling off).

We got a good nights rest and met at the arena at 7:00am to start the long day. 715 kids came, in teams from all over, some teams from Vegas and Idaho too! They weren't school teams, these are all private clubs. Here is a picture of the arena the night before they all came. And a photo of them in the morning warming up:
Seth and I helped out selling the tournament shirts for a while. And then we were summoned to the announcement table. Tyler (cousin) was in charge of announcing anything and everything. And then his wife, Lynae, Seth, and I were the data entry peeps. After each match, 13 going on at one time, we would receive the bout sheet and enter it into the system. It would then figure out the bracket and we'd print of new bout sheets for the wrestlers to go out and wrestle further in their weight class. It was an extremely busy day, but I had fun.

Though I've never seen so many crying boys in one day, I was impressed with the people I was surrounded by. Wrestlers are great people. If you think about the demanding sport, you realize why wrestlers are great people. Having grown up with it I have seen how dedicated one must be to truly succeed in this individual sport. It takes intense self discipline to stay in top shape and be healthy in your weight class. It is a very unique sport than all the rest. The ages of these boys wrestling each other ranged from 6 &under to 15! These are young people!! And the things I watched them do showed more character than I've seen in a lot of teenagers.

At one match two boys were wrestling their hardest and I could see how much they both wanted to succeed. The winner won by 'decision', 8-7pts. The boy who lost was so happy though, he hugged his opponent, shook the hand of his opponent's coach and he just walked off so happy. His coach asked why he was so happy, "Coach, even though I lost - that was the best I've ever wrestled!" I just think that is so awesome.

Another match, it was at the end of the 3rd period, the 10yr old's were a good match for each other but one wrestler was just working his opponent hard. Getting take down after take down, he won by points. At the end of the last period, he had his opponent down on his back and when the whistle blew and the match was over his opponent just laid there. The winner (Lane) literally picked up his opponent, hugged him, said he was a fantastic wrestler and patted him on his back, etc. He then shook the coach's hand. I just think he showed amazing sportsmanship. He was not cocky or boastful of his success. I watched him throughout the day and was just so impressed with his character.

There were a lot of other things I noticed, and watched that were sweet moments. It was a good day. It got a bit crazy at the end. With some glitches in the Internet/program... it all got crazy and we dealt with a lot of impatient but calm parents, coaches, etc. But no one was rude to us, etc. . . well - except for one lady I got a bit fed up with. It was so loud with all the yelling and cheering going on at the mats, everyone had to yell at each other in order to hear any conversation. It was an intense day, and it finally was over about 8:00pm. I would do it again, and I'm glad Seth came with me. Though a lot of my cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents were there to help, I didn't really see any of them much. But I know it wouldn't have been a success unless we were all there to help Uncle Andy and Aunt Natalie. I'm glad we were able to go and help out, it was a crazy busy - but fun day!