Wrestling is an amazing sport that is physically and mentally challenging.  Those challenging moments though will do amazing things for us though like build stronger physical and mental abilities.  It is easy to see the physical strength but I want to focus on the mental qualities that wrestling can help build.  The first quality is loyalty.  

To me, loyalty is being there for someone when you have the chance to not be there.  Wrestling has an individual element to it but it also has a team element as well.  We become like a second family for each other as we cheer and support each other on and off the mat.  We are there for each other at school, in friendships, through challenges and less challenging moments.  We develop strong relationships and friendships that outlast life itself. 

I have been preparing for a Hall of Fame event on 11/14 where the past and present wrestlers will come together to honor wrestlers that have achieved great things on and off the mat.  It has been so fascinating to reach back into the past and see how strong of a bond wrestlers from the past have developed.  I am looking forward to the coming season and the opportunities that we will get as a team to come together and establish those strong friendships.

"To be a man is... to be responsible. It is to feel shame at the sight of what seems to be unmerited misery. It is to take pride in a victory won by one's comrades. It is to feel, when setting one's stone, that one is contributing to the building of the world."

--Antoine de Sainte-Exupery
​Aviator, Writer

"The best teamwork comes from men who are working independently toward one goal in unison."

​--James Cash Penney
Founder of the J.C. Penney Company

"The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are: Hard work, Stick-to-itiveness, and Common sense."

-- Thomas Edison
American Inventor

​"In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves... self-discipline with all of them came first."

-- Harry S. Truman
33rd President of the United States of America

"Success is a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don't quit when you're tired. You quit when the gorilla is tired."

-- Robert Strauss