Weighty matters

The Guam High School All Island Wrestling Champs headed off to Korea for the Far East Tournament. The whole experience seemed to be a comedy of errors. Some of the guys on the wrestling team could not make weight after the Christmas Holidays, and so the Coach decided to move his wrestlers up a weight class! (Who does that? Wrestling coaches are know for making their wrestlers cut, Cut, CUT weight!) Trevor didn't have issues making his 168 weight class but the wrestler below him and above him couldn't lose the 13 plus pounds they gained. So, the Coach, despite our protests, moved Trevor up to the 180 weight class! I was freaking out. Trevor did the best he could, but wrestling guys 12 pounds heavier in freestyle wrestling, when he was used to collegiate wrestling, ended up besting him. Despite injuring his bicep, Trevor still placed 6th at Far East.

Then the Guam High team got robbed in the Dual Tournament (see the down faces). After the Individual Tournament, GHS had 6 wrestlers in the finals and scored 21. Father Duenas, Guam High's rival, only had four in the finals and scored 19. The tournament director David Hemmer was confused and thought GHS was lower than FD in the standings. Guam High was seeded lower than FD for the Dual Tournament and the tournament director said he was sorry for the confusion, GHS was asked to wrestle and wrestle they did against ASIJ and lost because we had to forfeit 4 weight classes. FD wrestled the following day, GHS was suppose to be in this bracket instead of them, lost all 3 matches and placed 6th-----UNBELIEVABLE.------ Guam High would have won, had they wrestled in the proper place, and placed 4th or 5th.

So when you do the best you can and it's not enough..... You go have a snow ball fight...

and enjoy all that Seoul has to offer.

This is the team waiting at the airport and trying to boost each other's morale (Trevor has the red gym bag)


Trevor said he kept going over in his head what he should have done better....

moves he could have done differently

power that wasn't enough


And in the end when he realized he couldn't change the past, he did the only thing plausible--put it out of his mind and dreamt of future matches in college.

And as a parent, I had to accept what I preach.... about being a good loser... and remembering: it's not about the weight of the man in the fight but the weight of the fight in the man.