The referee blows his whistle, and they begin. In front of me, another person relatively the same height and weight as me. He grabs onto the back of my neck, but it’s no problem. I know I’m stronger, faster, more skilled than he is. With one swift movement, I throw him to the mat and the referee is looking closely. My opponent tries to scramble to his freedom, but the ref blows his whistle again and the match is over.
I’ve one countless matches in my wrestling singlet. Blood, sweat and tears have been poured onto the stretchy and elastic piece of cloth. I’ve always hated how ugly it looked with its dark green background and the bright yellow words “Bronx Science” stretching across its chest. However, in the Bronx Science Wrestling team, that ugly singlet could be seen as a promotion. Usually, the more experienced wrestlers wore the green singlets, while the newer wrestlers wore an even uglier, bright yellow one.
The first tournament of my senior year approaches. Although I had only joined in my junior year, I was excited for the season to begin. I was expecting to be top 5 in the city for my weight class, and the first tournament is where I could gauge my abilities compared to the others. I had been itching all summer to put on my singlet, shoes, headgear and start beating people. As I progressed through the tournament, I could almost feel that gold medal being hung around my neck. I reached the semi-finals, and as I approach the mat, I see a taller and lankier opponent standing across from me. In my mind, I was about to destroy him. There was no way he could beat me. The whistle is blown, and the match begins. I grab the back of his neck and go for a head-and-arm throw. A move I have done multiple times, my favorite move. Little did I know, my favorite move would come back and haunt me for over a year. My legs had been too wide, and my form was compromised. I hear a snap from my knee, and I immediately knew something was wrong. With the adrenaline that was coursing through my veins, I didn’t feel any pain. I went to the doctor the next day, and he told me I had completely torn my ACL.
Even though wrestling had ruined my senior year, I am still proud of what I had accomplished. I became a coach for the rookies on the team, as our head coach could only handle so many wrestlers at a time. Using what I knew and my experiences wrestling, I was able to pass on this knowledge to others. People say that you understand things better when you teach it, which allowed me to get a better understanding of wrestling myself.
3 comments
Well written Jason! Your introduction does a good job with getting the attention of the reader and I like how you described everything. It allows one to have an accurate image in my mind about what you’re talking about. I’m sorry that you had your senior year ruined but hey, out of all of the people I know who sat out their last year because of an injury, I think you made the best of it by being the mentor for rookies. After all, nothing makes you seem like a veteran more than an injury!
What’s good Jason,
I find this story interesting mainly because I also had friends in the bxsci wrestling team. I joined wrestling for my high school for a week but I really was not about it. Unfortunate that you tore your ACL, but at least you didn’t make waste of it and you helped mentor the new kids.
Hello Jason! As a start, you really well-introduced the topic you were talking about with the description of your wrestling match. The introduction immediately grabbed my attention but once I entered the second body paragraph I had the idea that the ugly suit would be the object that the story would be based on. But then as I continued to read I understood that the wrestling technique was the main idea of the story. Overall, the story was very vivid as I could picture the wrestling matches in my head as if I saw them myself, and the conclusion was well put with you coming to terms with your injury.