Most Young Wrestlers Don’t Grow Up As Fast As Parents Wish
This weekend as I walked the floor of the VAC national wrestling duals at the Virginia Beach Convention Center I kept hearing different parents say something that was very wishful thinking. The statement went something like this:
He’s going to grow up fast this weekend.
The “he” in this statement is referencing a young wrestler competing for the first time at this event. The first time I heard a parent say this, I didn’t think much of it. However, after I heard the third and forth different variation of this from other parents I had this thought hit me.
The VAC wrestling duals is one of the hardest youth and middle school tournaments in the nation. The first time any young wrestler experiences the level of competition at this event is quite a shock. Over the years, many enter this event as champions from their local area and leave without winning a single match in 10 tries.
The First Time a Young Wrestler Faces a Losing Streak
Young wrestlers accustomed to winning all the time often meltdown in the midst of a 10 match weekend losing streak like this. Parents of wrestlers who experience this weekend of defeat hope their children will not only get better from facing better competition, they also hope their children will grow up and face defeat with more maturity. Unfortunately, this is not how growing up works. Growing up is a process. It doesn’t happen in a weekend.
What happens instead is that a single brick is laid. Furthermore, this brick is one of many ultimately needed to grow up. This is because growing up is synonymous with building a wall of resilience, persistence, and mental toughness. What’s more, building this wall of resilience, persistence, and mental toughness requires experiencing the ups and downs of success and failure over many years.
As much as parents want their young wrestlers to grow up after a day or even a weekend of tough wrestling, this is simply an unreasonable expectation.