Wrestling sits in an odd spot. It is one of the oldest sports, perhaps the most famous event of the ancient Greek Olympic Games, which took place two and a half thousand years ago. Plato, the famous Greek philosopher, was also an avid wrestler. His pen name, Plato, was short for Platon, Greek for broad, which was a name given to him by his wrestling coach.
In thousands of years, the sport of Greek philosophers, soldiers, and Olympic athletes has carried on the tradition of grappling and pinning to Boulder High School.
The boys wrestling team is the second smallest CHSAA boys team at Boulder High. What makes the team especially unique is that it is the only martial arts team offered at the school. Furthermore, wrestling is unique in that matches are played individually, yet are in direct opposition with an opponent. In this way, it is more apt to compare wrestling to a chess game than a basketball game.
Wrestling requires physical explosiveness, strength, and technique; However in a similar vein to chess, initiative, resilience, and mental clarity of executive functioning are greatly required. In talking to one of the team’s wrestlers, Alex Smith says, ‘26, “it takes a lot of mental capacity, and it is a sport that requires a lot of hard work and dedication…which helps with jobs and disciplining yourself when it comes to school.” By practicing mental clarity and resilience on the mat, the same skills and discipline acquired can be utilized in other parts of a student’s life.
In watching wrestling and even attending practice, where I was invited to participate, I have come to view the sport as one of contradictions: Both of power and humility, brutality and civility, strength and intelligence, and bloody yet artful. I found that, as it is about overpowering opponents, and hopefully pinning them, it is also about reserving and conserving your own power, and artfully redirecting an opponent’s weight.
Wrestling requires a great deal of technique and basic components, most important, a calm mind. To this, Nicholas Young, ‘26, describes being “nervous walking up to it. You know, any wrestler, doesn’t matter how long you’ve wrestled, it is always so nerve-racking walking up to the mat, but the moment you shake hands with that wrestler, all your nerves go away, and you’re pretty focused.”
I saw firsthand under the dramatic spotlight, in the January 9th dual, how this calm and focus was able to transition, to my untrained eyes, unwinnable positions into pins (which are automatic wins). In the dual aforementioned, Smith and Young won their respective events, aided by the discipline and calm focus I saw when talking to them.
Wrestling is as much as it requires training, strength, and a level of brutality, a wrestler must also bring their calm and wits. With the support of a welcoming roster, good captains, and coaches, the future looks bright for wrestling at Boulder High.
