Wrestling

Jack lost a heartbreaker match yesterday — and thus didn’t win the tournament — because of poor sportsmanship by the opposing wrestler and coach as well as the referee. Jack has been wrestling since he was five years old and much of that at an elite level. N O   M A T C H has ever been stopped because Jack cried.

His opponent yesterday “cried out” twice — meaning that he started bawling once he was in jeopardy of getting scored on and/or pinned. The referee stopped the match, gave the kid a chance to rest and catch his breath and then the boys reset in the neutral position. In essence, the boy cried twice when he was in jeopardy to force a “do-over”  so he wouldn’t lose the match.

The referee (a volunteer from the Owego Wrestling Club, who was clearly acquainted with and intimated by the boy’s coach) further rewarded the poor sportsmanship by not awarding Jack points because of the cry out. (There’s are a lot of details to the rules, but basically if a wrestler cries out when he’s on his back and in danger of being scored on, the other wrestler should receive at least one, if not more, points to penalize the cry out.)

There’s nothing I hate more in youth wrestling than kids who manipulate the outcome by crying.  We’ve seen it for years, in our own wrestling clubs and in the tournaments we go to.

Wrestling is a tough sport, and not for everyone. If a kid can’t handle the emotional and physical burdens, then his parents need to find him another activity.  In this case, the father and coach were clearly supporting the crying out. Unfortunately, I can’t say that the worst criers are beginners. The criers are frequently talented wrestlers who have excellent physical skills but exhibit little sportsmanship and integrity. They just can’t handle losing, so they cry. I’ll bet if you checked it out, the boy Jack lost to has cried out in many of his other matches as well. Criers tend to be repeat offenders.

Perhaps I’d give the kid the benefit of the doubt if he didn’t cry out twice, about 30 second apart, both times when he was in jeopardy. Jack had been doing the same moves over and over again throughout the match. How come the kid didn’t need to cry in pain all the previous times Jack did the move? Does it only hurt when you are about to lose the match, and not hurt while you’re winning?

The kid didn’t cry until Jack was about to get three points (which would have won Jack the match.) I’d also be more likely to give the kid the benefit of the doubt if I hadn’t seen other wrestlers from the Alden club crying out in their matches as well.

And, I’d give the kid the benefit of the doubt if he wasn’t an elite wrestler. He has placed highly in national tournaments — War at the Shore,  Ohio Tournament of Champions, etc. At that level of wrestling, he’s had a lot of experience in a variety of situations. Jack was the only wrestler to score on the boy in the five matches the boy wrestled. By the time he wrestled Jack, he clearly expected to win. Once Jack score three points on him, the crying began.

I’d also give the kid the benefit of the doubt if he showed any signs of actually being hurt. After crying in his match with Jack about how bad his shoulder and arm hurt, he didn’t ice it at all. We saw him messing around with his friends at full speed just minutes after the match.

I don’t especially blame the boy. He’s the victim of poor teaching by his coach and parents. After the match, we heard the coach gushingly praising the boy for how well he wrestled. What??!!

Again, wrestling is a CONTACT sport. A lot of it HURTS A LOT. But nothing hurts worse than losing unfairly.

Jack handled the situation like the champion he is. He was angry about it — still is — but seems to have a reasonable perspective. He’s mostly pissed off at the referee for allowing the situation to occur. He’s also already recognizing that there were a lot of positives from yesterday — five matches to get him ready for his next tournament, an excellent example of sportsmanship by a Johnson City coach who did the right thing, even though it might have cost his wrestler, classy wrestling and sportsmanship from Danny Blaasch.

Jack might not have won the match anyway — who knows if the kid would have come back and scored on Jack. The kid was considerably bigger than Jack (weight AND height) which was making it tough for Jack to score (Jack often stuggles against taller wrestlers). But it was quite sad that the crying marred the opportunity to find out who was really the better wrestler in that match.