Thread: March Matness

NCAA wrestling championships on tonight. Maybe my favorite sporting event of the year. I have watched it every year for a couple of decades now.

There are 2 Colorado kids vying for Championships tonight. Cohlton Schultz and Ryan Deakin. Schultz is probably the greatest HS wrestler in Colorado history who wrestled for 4 years in Colorado. I put in the qualifier because Henry Cejudo moved to Colorado and wrestled his junior and senior seasons in HS at Coronado. He won a gold medal at like 19 or 20 years old at the Olympics, he's the best HS wrestler in state history.

Deakin went to Legacy HS and this is his second trip to the national finals, he took second last season. I am rooting really hard for Deakin to win.

Schultz has a tough row to hoe, he is facing the current Olympic heavyweight champion and the no doubt best Heavyweight wrestler in the world. But Schultz is a multiple time junior Greco Roman world champion and has better than a puncher's chance. Would be a gigantic upset though and I am definitely rooting for it.

Yes!!!!!! Deakin dominated. Won 9-2. Nice job young man. A 4 time All American and a National Champion. So happy for him. So much work goes into winning one of these. Good Job Ryan Deakin Legacy Alumni and living up to the name.

As a former wrestler I approve of this thread.

Wrestling as a sport is underrated. I guess, as an old man now, this is the appropriate thread to share some stories/thoughts. I wrestled for 11 years. The little town I'm from was known as a wrestling factory, dating back to the late 60s. We had many state championships, many individual champions so any halfway athletic kid from our little town (3k people) was introduced at a young age. Many stuck, especially since there was no organized football until 8th grade. We had good coaches, most of them with day jobs as teachers (and therefore friends with my father who taught for 30+ years and created the still current school logo). The down side was kids from our school always had a target on our backs.

I have a ton of memories of practices in the "sweat box." It was a large padded room (about 4 full mats square to those who know wrestling) up about two flights of stairs (God do I still hate those stairs) from our elementary gym. Made just for wrestling. The walls were adorned with custom made wooden boy scout style wooden plaques, denoting every high school team state finish, and the individual names of each wrestler who placed top 5 in state for said team/year. It was motivational. I hate those stairs because ran them, in countless ways, many times. It only happened 3 or 4 times a year, but after a hard practice if we busted our ass enough we got put into 2 teams (shirts/skins) and got to dog fight. The rules where simple, you can't leave your knees. Equal guys, each side, split to weight was equal as well, then they turned us loose and it was a 20 vs 20 battle Royale. You get pinned, your out, everybody all at once. It was half chess game half pure chaos. We loved it.

I guess I should have prefaced this with I was never great. A "B" at best...my name is on the wall though with a 5th place state finish my best year. However being a teachers son I was always reliable, never missed practice and had brains despite being outgunned athletically often. One of the coolest things was in freestyle tournaments, especially state since we had many qualifiers and not a bunch of coaches, the coaches would assign team captains to be in wrestlers "corners" as a wrestlers was not able to compete without a "coach" in their corner. It was always a trip to see a younger kid getting ready to go, worried because a coach hadn't checked in yet and seeing their relief when you, somebody they looked up to grabbed their shoulders and asked if they were ready to kick ass. I learned lot about leadership.

So there ya go, sorry for the rant. I hadn't thought about it for long time.

Tldr: wrestlers are badasses.