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The state tournament is the "grand-daddy of them all"
when it comes to high school sports. Every minute spent training
builds up to that tournament; every extra pull-up, extra rep in
drilling, and early morning or late night work out is to help you be
at your best for that tournament. It's crazy to think all of your
training culminates into one tournament. I thought about getting my
hand raised on that Saturday night at least 100 times a day my
junior and senior years. It still gives me chills just thinking
about it. In light of the individual state tournament this week, I
want to share my experience with the wrestling community, and
perhaps influence a few wrestlers in similar situations.
Just as a small background of where I'm coming from,
I'm not the biggest or most athletic person in the world. I was too
small and lacked talent to be successful in pretty much every sport
that valued those characteristics. Wrestling is a great sport
because you can be successful with hard work and dedication. I have
always been a hard worker in everything I do. My work ethic emerged
from a combination of watching my Mother work hard to support my
brother and I, being small and lacking the general abilities to be
competitive in sports. In other sports, I worked hard and got an
average result. In wrestling, I applied my work ethic and achieved
success, which made me hungry for greater success. During my Senior
season, I was doing all the right things: practice hard, watch film
to look for improvements in my wrestling, extra workouts to make my
body and mind stronger. I felt like I had to do more than my junior
year since I didn't have any quality practice partners on the team
around my weight. My practice partner throughout middle school and
through my Junior year, Kyle Schneider, graduated and there were
only a few other kids on the team around my weight, mostly new to
the sport. I usually tried to practice with the middle weights
(130-145) to compensate for this, but it wasn't the same feel, and I
would usually beat up on most of those guys. It was weird for me to
not take an absolute beating in the practice room, which sparked me
to move up in weight during meets to get better competition and be
in those battles on the mat that I didn't get in practice. I wanted
to get that experience so I was ready come the state tournament.
Throughout most of high school, I thought a lot about
being a state champ. It's what got me through most of my extra
workouts, believing in the end result. But come time for the
tournament, I froze up. During the week of the state tournament my
Senior year, I was feeling very confident about winning a state
title. I was coming off a 14-0 win in sectionals over the eventual
state runner-up. All I could think about that week was how the
finals match would go, what I would do, how I would respond to
adversity if it presented itself. I put so much energy thinking
about that match, that tournament in general, that I was completely
drained when the tournament came. I just went through the motions,
not even thinking during my wrestling. It felt like I was watching
from mat-side, as I don't really remember wrestling the matches. All
I remember is the mental matches I had of the finals. I put so much
emphasis on this tournament that when it came time to perform, I
didn't (this carried through to college, as I approached the Big Ten
tournament the same way as the state tournament). All of the other
matches throughout the season and during summer, I would take each
match as an attempt to show everybody and show myself how hard I've
worked. I would perform to my fullest at most times, with the
occasional "off" day. The thing is, I just had fun out there. I know
that saying gets thrown around a lot, but there is a lot of truth to
it. When you focus on having fun and using all of your abilities,
all of your training, you perform to your maximum, and that is what
makes wrestling fun. You get to use your talents and training to win
a battle against an opponent who is trying to do the same thing.
There's nothing better than knowing you used everything you had in a
match. Whether your hand is raised or not, you've won.
That's the message I want to get across. You put so
much time and effort into the sport, that you owe it to yourself to
perform to your capabilities. If you hold back, you are not
rewarding yourself for all of the hard work you put into the sport.
You've done all of the hard stuff, the practices, extra work outs,
etc. You've wrestled 10, 20, 30 minute go's in the practice room.
You've put yourself through the pain of circuit workouts and runs.
It sucks, but you push through because you want to succeed in front
of a crowd, you want to win. You owe it to yourself to give yourself
the best chance to win. If you do that, if you perform your very
best, if you use all of your hard work and abilities, if you leave
absolutely everything you can out on the mat, you've won. The
raising of the hand is just a bonus (a nice one to say the least).
This is just something to think about when you are out there at the
state tournament. Don't stress yourself out about the end result.
Just tell yourself that you are going to perform out there, give
your absolute best effort, and you will have nothing to hang your
head about. Good luck to all on at the tournament.
Yours in wrestling,
Drew Hammen
(Posted Sunday, February 19, 2012) |