By Fabian Coleman
Do you know what a suplex, dusty finish, or flipping turtle is? Probably not, the sport of wrestling is not that well known to people. The sports that are talked about are football, basketball, baseball, and volleyball but never wrestling. And no, I am not talking about WWE with John Cena; Woodlawn’s very own wrestling team puts in a lot of hard work and deserves recognition for their dedication.
Wrestling is a physically demanding sport. Before practice can even begin, the team must go through a month long conditioning period from September 4th – October 1st. Conditioning normally requires the team to run laps around the tennis courts, perform pushups, sit-ups, and then finish with sprints. This helps to prepare the team for two, six minute long matches. These matches are nonstop; there is only a ten second break before continuing to the second match, making our conditioning incredibly important. After conditioning, the real practice begins. It usually starts at 2:45 p.m. and ends at 5:00 p.m.; during that time the team does numerous exercises to get ready for the upcoming tournaments. Practice consists of warm-ups, technique work, sparing, and cool down. The whole practice is very competitive but fun because the central idea of sparing is to help each other increase the skills of the team.
In order to join the team, it does not matter what grade you are in as long as you get a physical and do what Coach Lewis tells you to do. This takes some serious work and grit because at that point you are a student athlete and need to stay on top of your grades. I hope after reading this article it motivates you to go out and join, or at least watch, the Woodlawn Wrestling Team.
