Why Children Should Wrestle?
Whether it’s the sport that makes the man or the qualities of the man that makes the sport, there is no question that society needs wrestling. Besides the exceptional health benefits, the sport imparts to all who wrestle qualities that are critical to achievement in life . . . things like hard work, discipline, persistence, cunning, self-reliance, responsibility, goal orientation, sacrifice and teamwork – the exact performance competency values that made our country great.
This might be the reason that in our country’s history, more American Presidents (7) have wrestled than participated in any other sport! Teddy Roosevelt as a point of interest had a wrestling room installed in the White House during his eight years in office.Most people don't realize that one of his most famous lines of prosecameinto being as a result of his years as a wrestler:
The Man In The Arena
"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strongman stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly...who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have never known neither victory nor defeat."
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More CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies have competed on mats than over grass or wood. Statistics straight from the Forbes group show that 47% of these CEO's were National Honor Society members, 97% were athletes, 82% participated in individual sports, and 58% were wrestlers. These percentages are also similar when one looks at members of Congress and those that walk the corridors of power in Washington.
John Irving, renowned author, Academy Award Winner and wrestler during his developmental years believes this about the sport. “I feel more a part of the wrestling community that I feel I belong to the community of arts and letters. Because wrestling requires even more dedication than writing; because wrestling represents the most difficult and rewarding objective I have ever dedicated myself to; because wrestlers and wrestling coaches are among the most disciplined and self sacrificing people I have ever known.”
If there is one category of men that military recruiters target when they’re looking for “a few good men” to join their elite fighting forces such as the Rangers, Seals and Delta Force they turn to wrestling. Historically wrestlers outlast enlistees in the extreme rigors of military training by a ratio of 27 to 1 and have by far the highest rate of survival in times of conflict.
Wrestling, with very few exceptions, is for everyone. The sport doesn’t favor athletes of any particular height, size, weight, muscle type, or social class, nor does it rely on superior vision or hearing. As a matter of record, blind athletes make excellent wrestlers as do those with missing limbs or other forms of physical limitations. All it takes is determination and a willingness to believe that anything worth doing is worth doing poorly . . . that is, until you do it often enough to get it right.
Kyle Maynard is a 3.7 gpa student with a low center of gravity
at 2’1” who became one of the best high school wrestlers
inthe country. And by the way, he has no elbows or knees.
Regarding academic development, the sport of wrestling has the annual distinction of being in the top 10% of all male sports in the NCAA. Graduation rates for wrestlers at the collegiate level are 22% higher than that of the general student population. Scholastically over the last six years the academic average of the top 8 wrestlers in each of the 14 weight classes is a staggering 3.41. This has everything to do with the sport embodying discipline and time management skills as two of its primary tenets. For every wrestler has to maintain efficient weight levels, attain degrees of conditioning only previously achieved by Olympians and still schedule enough personal time to enjoy the pleasures of life. All this takes extreme self-control and individual focus as success and discipline have no limitations.
When we talk about the need to be physically fit and our personal wish to be well developed, wrestling is king here as well. Aesthetically there are no better bodies in all of sport than are found in wrestling. Be it symmetric measurements, the depth of muscular cut or reduced blood pressure and cholesterol levels, wrestlers have the best of it all. Visually they are tight, sculpted and sexy while internally at optimal health. Michelangelo, DeVinci and Picasso have all been so enamored with wrestler’s physiques that each used them as models. And given the physical deterioration of our country’s children to obesity, the average percentage of body fat in wrestlers is a very healthy and remarkable 7.2%. That compares very favorably to the general student population that has well over 20% body fat.
Those who come from the wrestling community also score extremely high in levels of self-esteem and rank in the top 2% of the world in physical fitness testing.
Something that should not be overlooked, of all the performance-enhancing drugs that are becoming popular in today’s sporting industry, at the top of everyone’s list are the various forms of steroids. Yet in the last 100 years only one wrestler out of the millions that can say they participated in the sport tested positive for steroid use. Only one! This impressive statistic can most likely be linked to the integrity the sport imparts to its participants, their individual sense of fair play and the critical nature of weight maintenance. As long as these three key factors are grouped together, as they are in wrestling, the use of steroids will not be one the sport’s challenges.
Speaker of the House of Representatives Dennis Hastert feels, “The sport of wrestling is a tremendous builder of the values and of the characteristics which are needed to succeed in any walk of life. Much of what I have managed to achieve in life I owe directly to the years I spent in the wrestling room, as an athlete and as a coach. Wrestling is a great educational tool.”
If you are already part of our sport’s fraternity, these points shouldn’t surprise you. For those of you who aren’t, maybe you should take a closer look at wrestling and encourage others to as well.
Donald Rumsfeld