I was a wrestler in high school. Not the WWE kind, the greco-roman variety. & I was terrible at it. My best friend coaxed me into it in our freshman year by appealing to my competitive nature –we had a long history of friendly rivalry.
The first weeks of practice & learning were hell, but I couldn’t give up. I had to get better. Improve my stamina, get stronger, get quicker & figure out the moves & holds. The season began in November & ran about five months with weekly meets & matches against other school teams with a handful of tournaments along the way. By the end of that first year, I had gotten much better in every sense & could go three 2-minute rounds, no problem. The problem was I never won a single match.
My sophomore year I was bigger & stronger. I had a much better handle on the skills required to compete in the gladiator sport. I practiced with teammates who were stronger & better than I was. & it made no difference. I won exactly 0 matches my second year.
It was utterly embarrassing. Here I was, a track MVP, a volleyball star & a high-school fav among my peers –& I couldn’t outpoint or pin a single opponent.
Yet I signed up again in my third year. What can I say? I loved grinding it out. Trying to outsmart the opponent. lifting weights & doing pushups & running 10 Ks & suicides. Trying to perfect take-downs, head & arm throws, suplexes, half-nelsons, bridges, arm drags, escapes & sprawls, ankle picks & grapevines… loved it! That season started rough too –took a couple losses to start. But then, things changed. I suddenly won. A lot. I don’t remember my record that year, but I ended the season with my first winning record.
Then in grade 12, shit got real. Every time I stepped on the mat I was in a zone. My confidence was through the roof. I lost four matches out of 18 & went to the city championships ranked 5th in Toronto in my weight class. Placing top three here would result in a trip to the provincial championships. These matches would be single five-minute rounds; I marched through my competition to the finals to challenge for 1st place. In that contest, I got caught in a head & arm throw very early on & was virtually pinned near the middle of the mat.
I vividly remember laying there thinking “yep, I’m done”. From under my opponent’s armpit I could see my coach yelling at me to bridge out… a bevy of onlooking wrestlers I mostly didn’t recognize hollering intangibles & clapping… I even saw & heard many of the onlookers in the bleachers shouting at the top of their lungs in support. Time felt like it slowed right down. & I had to decide: quit or fight?
I was exhausted under this 190lb kid who was wearing me out (which is the point of this killer pinning move). So I chose: I dug in. I bridged & twisted & contorted & pushed until eventually, the ref whistled us dead. I had dragged that kid all the way out of bounds. We would square off again in the middle of the mat. Another chance.
As soon as my opponent let go, I bounced off the mat effortlessly & jogged back to the center circle ready to go again. I didn’t look at him directly, but in my periphery vision, I could see he was exhausted, still sitting on the mat. He watched me bound to the center looking unscathed & fresh, then looked to his coach in disbelief, then he dragged himself to standing & over to meet me at center.
There was less than two minutes on the clock & I was down 3 points.
Right off the whistle, we grappled & I got inside on him for a double leg take down –a specialty of mine. 1 point. He rolled to his stomach, standard defensive position meant to avoid being turned or rolled. I distracted him by feigning a roll while setting him up for what I really wanted: an ankle bind. Once I had that locked in, I got to my feet & tossed him carouselling across the mat & out of bounds instead of holding onto those legs & rolling with him. (Full disclosure: I wanted to send him a message of my dominance.) He must’ve rolled four times. Unfortunately for me, he rolled from one hand to the other & across his seat all the way. Only counts for 1 point unless the shoulders make contact with the mat. A tactical error on my part. 2 points now.
The ref whistled us back to center to restart again. I knew I had to move quick. We grappled mid-mat while I looked for a way in & he resisted mightily. The alarm went. The match ended. I lost 3-2.
I would have to settle for second place in the city finals. I still went on to compete in the provincials, but despite this loss, that was the crowning match of my collegiate wrestling career. What it took to gut out that ugly start & the furious rally that followed that fell just short –so proud of that day.
I spent my first two seasons as the underdog. I became the favored, rose to prominence & then had to rally for one of the toughest comebacks I’ve had.
It’s the stuff legends are made of. From out of nowhere, the impossible rally. The incredible fortitude. The monumental collapse. Analogies abound.
That’s the story we all love –a person sticking to their passion, their desire & never giving it up, come what may. Hanging in & trying to find a way to keep on keeping on. It’s not unlike life itself. In it’s purest survivalist form or in its civilized, societal trying-to-get-ahead mold. We can all relate, no matter our walk of life because most of us have relished moments of victory & suffered the sting of defeat.
This week marks 30 years since Bonnie Raitt’s Nick of Time swept the Grammys. Raitt was a virtual unknown in the mainstream music world for some 20 years before that. A musical prodigy who perpetually toured, she recorded nine albums for Warner Bros. prior to being dropped by the label. She just wasn’t selling. So what did Raitt do at the tender age of 39? Stuck with it, signed a new deal with Capitol, recorded Nick of Time & went on to win four Grammy Awards. She’s now comfortably on Rolling Stone Magazine’s 100 Greatest Singers & 100 Greatest Guitarists lists & is still making her music & touring to this day.
How’s that for an underdog story. Proof of the human spirit, the need for faith & that everyone loves a great comeback.