The Red Out against Saline a crucial match at 135 pounds, I trot out there with my trusty white and gold shoes light as a feather, brain cleared, ready to wrestle. The match starts and as I reach for my opponent's right leg extended away from me I can hear the faint sounds of the crowd screaming, my coach in the corner yelling “Backside! Backside” and as I come to the realization of what has happened I heard a loud whistle and a huge slap on the mat. The crowd erupts from their seats with great power, screaming.

When I was six years old I was thrown into a sport called wrestling. I grew up watching muscular men throwing around other men in WWE. When I signed up that was what I was looking for, but soon came to the realization of that is not what we are doing. As I walked into the wrestling room for the first time the smell of mold and sweat overcame me, I wasn’t sure if wrestling was what I wanted to do. I had a choice to make, leave and never come back to the sweatshop the wrestling room was, stay and try it out, or commit 11 years of my life to it. Little did I know, on that first day I would choose to give 11 years of my life to the sport. I fell in love with the sport from an early age. Like any sport, I was terrible when I started, I only beat the same kid every tournament and lost every single other match. As the years went on, through practice and experience I got better. My skill had grown so much that when I was nine years old I had to be moved up to the 11 and 12 age bracket. 

When I moved on to the Junior High I was confident in my ability to wrestling and had my best two seasons of my life to that point. My two seasons combined for a record of 32-5 and a team co-MVP for my 8th-grade season. As the saying goes all good things must come to an end, and soon they did. The summer of my freshman year I was training for the upcoming season and an unexpected injury happened, I had torn my MCL and meniscus in my right knee. The tear happened so fast, the instant pop, the shot of pain right to the sight of the tear. The ensuing scream and hustle from my mo to see what the problem was, at that moment I knew my season was done. This injury set me back what seemed years in the time I missed with surgery, rehab, and strength training. I missed half of my freshman year because of the injury. 

Coming back onto the mat was hard and was a slow and tedious process. Most of my freshman year ended in waste and I didn’t accomplish anything noteworthy. Sophomore year was the best I have ever felt about myself and wrestling. Going into my Sophomore year I bought my favorite wrestling shoes of all-time, white and gold Nike Freaks. Coming into the year at 5’7” tall, 132.5 pounds, physically toned but not muscular. I walked out onto the mat in my cherry red singlet boasting a giant white B on my chest ready to get to work. All the practice, the days of running, lifting weights all summer, the hard cut of weight has led up to this a single match, a single moment, and it was my time to shine. The year progressed and I was doing the best I had ever done, then the biggest dual meet of the year rolled around, The Red Out. The Bedford corral, the place I call home to so many tournaments. Bleachers from wall to wall and a giant Bedford B in the middle of all the seats. Wrestling mats door to door covering all of the wood floors. The great echos of the crowd before us. It was surreal warming up to wrestle in a dual I had watched as a little kid hoping one day I would make it there. As I went out onto the mat and shook the opponent's hand I know what I have to do. The match starts and as I reach for my opponent's right leg extended away from me I can hear the faint sounds of the crowd screaming, my coach in the corner yelling “Backside! Backside” and as I come to the realization of what has happened I heard a loud whistle and a huge slap on the mat. The crowd erupts from their seats with great power, screaming. I came out of the victorious and with a huge 6 team points which lead us to victory. 

Last year was the best year of wrestling I have had in my entire 11 years of doing it and I hope to expand on it and improve even more. I don’t think I will ever let go of my Nike Freaks because of all the memories made with them even outside of wrestling the experiences created because of them. The culmination of my triumphs and the pain of my Sophomore year of wrestling have been embodied in my white and gold shoes.