Wrestling, Sport for Our Times

[RidinTime]

FOLLOWING ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED, March 30, IN THE WSJ:

 

Wrestling, Sport for Our Times

 

By James Freeman

 

The official sport of the "new normal" recently held its annual championships in Philadelphia. Think of college wrestling as the athletic version of an austerity program. Wearing almost nothing, coached by men who make next to nothing, and with no hope of professional careers because they don't exist, 34 competitiors in each weight class arrived on the mats of the NCAA tournament.

 

Of course, all but one in each of the 10 weight classes left disappointed. As consolation prizes, many received significant facial bruising, and at least one, defending champion Darrion Caldwell of NC State, a dislocated shoulder.

 

Was anyone helped by quantitative easing? Not really. Some easing occurred when Arizona State's Bubba Jenkins released his cradle and stopped forcing his opponent to touch his knee to his head. But that was because the referee had signalled a pin to end the match, so Mr. Jenkins could afford to be accommodative.

 

Since the financial crisis, many Americans have talked about a return to traditional values like thrift, prudence and hard work. You can't get more traditional than wrestling. Even before Odysseus and Ajax grappled to a draw in Homer's Iliad, even before wrestling was a fan favorite at the ancient Olympics, cavemen scrawled images of prehistoric bouts.

 

Prudence? Experience in this sport teaches that one small mistake can result in a wrestler being thrown to his back. As for thrift, many competitors and coaches weren't even spending money on shampoo, their shaved heads gleaming under the lights of the Wells Fargo Center. Hard work? These guys have to train for "man's oldest form of recreational combat" WHILE on a diet. Sports fans still struggling with unemployment close to 9 percent, may find that wrestling has a new appeal in this environment. NFL players and owners still haven't agreed on how to split $9 Billion. In baseball, just two players, Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo, are scheduled to earn a combined $18 million from the NY Mets- even though neither one was good enough to make this year's team.

 

Fans who give wrestling a try may find that it offers all of the excitement of other sports. It is pure joy to watch kids like Penn State's David Taylor, a redshirt freshman who seemed to be without fear as he charged undefeated through the college season and into the NCAA final. Unfortunately for him, that's where he ran into the aforementioned Mr. Jenkins. The low-budget nature of wrestling also makes it an efficient vehicle for charity. Clinton Matter, an AA in the 1990s at the Univ of Penn, joined with a group of friends in 2009 to start an organization called Beat the Streets Philadelphia, which supports youth wrestling programs as well as inner-city high school teams.

 

Mr. Matter, who works on Wall Street and serves as chairman of the organization, reports that he and his friends are supporting programs in Philadelphia and in nearby Camden, N.J., that provide opportunities for 475 wrestlers. They accept grapplers as youn as four years of age, and they don't turn anyone away.

 

....The kids learn the virtues of discipline, hard work and accountability--all the qualities they'll need as they grow up. They might even help a prosperous America become the next normal.

Edited March 30, 2011 by RidinTime

[cbg]

Great article!