State wrestling thoughts

This was the second year in a row I've covered Iredell County athletes at the state wrestling championships in Winston-Salem, and the event is one of my favorites to cover. The state tournament had 672 wrestlers and 1,218 matches in three different classifications, which always makes for plenty of storylines.

My story that ran Sunday is here, and my follow-up notebook of information I didn't have room for the previous day is here.

I never wrestled growing up - unless you count the occasional trampoline match with my buddies - and wasn't too familiar with the sport until I began writing for newspapers out of college.

The one thing I like about wrestling is that a match is never over - unless, of course, someone gets pinned or the match is stopped due to a technical fall. But I've seen kids losing 13-0 get a pin out of nowhere and win the match with 10 seconds remaining. That's not possible in other sports. In basketball, if you're down 80-65 with 20 seconds remaining, you aren't going to win.

The athletes are incredibly invested in their matches as well. If you lose a match, most of the time it's because you got outworked, you did something you shouldn't have done or you didn't do something you should have. And it's all on you.

True story: In the depths of the LJVM Coliseum, the warm-up area consists of several mats put together.

This is one of my favorite areas to observe. Kids warm up with others they've never met, talk with teammates and curl up and sleep. I stepped over three sleeping heavyweights to get back upstairs, and I can't say I blame them. The tournament is a grueling two-day event, so some of those guys asleep had been at the Coliseum for at least 12 hours.

When I got over the mat to go upstairs, I noticed one wrestler as far away as possible from the crowd, singlet pulled down and absolutely bawling over what must have been a tough loss. \\

So I went to the concourse, ate some pizza (surprising, I know) and walked back down about 20 minutes later.

The same wrestler, still crying, hadn't moved an inch.