It
was one of my firmly held fantasies when I was young that I had some
special force of will that would push me through when others would
quit. This was not true, I had an average to below average force of
will. I had hung in with the basketball conditioning drills and I
thought that was pretty hard but there is some truth to what they say
about wrestling being what men are doing while the boys play
basketball. Before we would start practice we would run up and down
the stairs twenty times and that would be what I thought was a
reasonable amount of excessiveness and then we would work technique
and then we would wrestle for thirty minutes and then burn it down at
the end of practice. Too much. The final burn-down was a series of
relay races from one end of the wrestling room to the other. It was
hand walking followed by a bear crawl and on and on at full speed in
120 degree heat. One of the rules that I didn't know was that you
were not supposed to sit down while you waited for your turn again in
line. I was winded and hurting and came back and leaned against the
wall which I guess was okay and then when the line moved forward I
sat down and the a bunch of the old timers lost their minds. No
warning or gentle correction for me it was just rage about me being a
quitter and to stand the F-word up right f-wording then. Before I had
enough time to stand up one of the life time wrestlers came up and
kicked me hard in the butt. I started a little embarrassed, which
changed to rage pretty quickly. I told the kicker that he better not
touch me again and that I didn't know that it was a rule not to sit
down. I was exhausted but he had pushed the line a little far. I
stood up and pushed him which is not in my character when not pushed
to the physical and mental limit. He fought back and we went to the
ground and were quickly surrounded and just as quickly broken up. I
felt like creaming and crying or doing something to express my anger
and exhaustion. The coach yelled at us for fighting and then told us to
go run two miles. It was so nice and cold outside and jogging two
miles was a reprieve not a punishment. As we jogged the kicker kid
jogged beside me and apologized for kicking me I said I hadn't known
that sitting down was not allowed because it was my first time
wrestling. We didn't become fast friends but we did hit it off and
never had a problem again. After we were done running I went in and
picked up my clothes and didn't change, went to the local grocery
store bought a gallon of the cheapest flavored gallon of drink they
had and drank it down it one go. I Drove home, ran a bath, went to
sleep in the bath, woke up, crawled to my room and slept until
morning. Not the best day I have ever had - honestly.
