Sunday, February 17, 2013

Only the Young

I think it is time for a blog that is not all about me and my surgery...so here you go...a sports blog

So wrestling season has ended for The Cutest Boy in the World...(TCBITW)

So yeah...wrestling season...it's been a long one...but a good one...but a long one...

UGH!

Of the 3 sports my son plays this is the one that puts my stomach most into knots.  Football and lacrosse make me nervous but wrestling makes me crazy.

I love lacrosse...it moves fast and he's pretty safe in the back as a defender...so far he hasn't gotten hurt playing lacrosse...

Once my dear friend TrainerGirl had to attend to him on the sidelines...she was the trainer for the game...he was in 7th grade...

but that was because he needed a haircut...

yeah, she gave him a bang trim on the side of the field...he came off the field asking if I had scissors because his bangs were in his way...in his way of SEEING...so he wanted them cut.

I have many many many things in my purse but that day there were no scissors...

So TrainerGirl had some in her medic bag and she did the deed...I calmly watched as she snipped his bangs with scissors intended for cutting bandages but she did a great job and he plopped his helmet back on and went back into the game.

The coaches...both from our team, the 8th grade team and the opposing team were fascinated...

mostly because I knew all of them and the fascination was that me, the micro-managing of grooming mom, was letting Trainer Girl cut my son's hair...

with medical scissors...

on the sidelines of the lacrosse field...

She and I still laugh about that to this day...she has all kinds of skills and "cutting sweaty lacrosse playing boys bangs" is one of them...since then she uses that story when she has had to do so for other sports boys...

I think it should go on her resume:

"Can give emergency haircuts to sweaty boys"

Two things about this event should also be noted:
1) one of the coaches from the opposing team just now happens to be my son's wrestling coach...which now means that if HE ever gets scissors to my son's hair I don't have a leg to stand on

and
2) this was not his only sideline haircut...one time my friend LovelyLinda had to cut his hair during a wrestling tournament with fingernail scissors...she texted me that she was doing this (as I was not there to witness it but she felt disclosure was needed)...and yes, that same wrestling coach witness THAT haircut...

So the first night TCBITW had his first high school wrestling meet as luck would have it that meet occurred at the high school where TrainerGirl now works.

How did I get so lucky?

I had her by my side to calm me and then we went out for margaritas...

I felt better having her there because TCBITW suffered a concussion on his last set of plays for the football season.  He went in after the coach told him that he had done a great job in the game and just to do that set of downs and then he would put someone from the freshman team in his place.

My son is a freshman but they "moved him up" to the JV...yeah, he was good enough for that...small as he is he knocked down some very big sophomores and juniors...

So he goes in and sure enough as he is tackling a player from the other team another player from that team flew into him and hit him on the side of his head.

It rang his bell...

I was lucky enough to not witness it firsthand...my Aunt Jane did but I had turned to talk to my friend PrettyPhyllis and missed it...or else I might have run onto the field myself.

After the game he complained of headache but luckily did not vomit or pass out.

And luckily the very doctor who delivered him was there at the game...her son plays on the same team...so even though she said "remember I deal with cervixes and not boys" she took a look at him.  Another teammate has a dad who is also a doctor so he called me several times that night to check up on him.  We determined that he had a concussion but there isn't much to do about it so I took him home, fed him and put him to bed...and checked on him through the night.

We took him to the neurologist who pronounced he had a concussion..

No surprise but we felt better knowing a doctor had looked at his hard head.

He's fine now....

Ke$ha Barbie had a concussion once...we were at a soccer tournament but she didn't get the concussion on the field...

She got it in her friend's hotel room by hitting her head on the headboard.

The scary part was that she didn't remember doing it so when she came back to our room she said she felt bad and went to sleep...9 hours later we learned she had hit her head...

She has a hard head too...but in the figurative sense not so much the literal...

Headboards and boys flying at you are no match for your head.

So now each child has had a concussion.

I had 3 as a child...maybe that is what is wrong with me...

So back to wrestling...

What a sport...

Watching boys grapple each other while wearing leotards is totally cringe-worthy...

My son will tell you it is not a leaotard but rather a "singlet" but all the same it is a strange garment...and I totally get why my son waits till the last minute to take off his shorts and why he throws them back on right away when he is done...

It's a very scary uniform to wear...I would look horrible in it....but my son does it justice as he is now a lean mean fighting machine.

I feel sorry for the boys who have to wear...WHITE ONES...(shudder)...they are as horrid as they sound.  And not only do they look just plain awful but...and I'm sorry to inflict this on you and you may need brain bleach after but it was cornea searing to me...it's really not good to be wearing a white singlet if you happen to crap your pants during your match...and yes, that happened to one poor child who was forced to wrestle one of our boys who is pretty much one of the best wrestlers in the nation..not kidding...not kidding about pooping in the pants or the fact that we have a kid who just might place nationally next weekend...

When he started wrestling in the 6th grade he was a pudgy little boy...he looked like a little sausage stuffed into his singlet...but now he looks like a poster boy for wrestling...the real kind not WWF...he's a lean mean wrestling machine.

And I hate the fact he can drop 2 pounds in a day...all water weight but still...

And I hate that we have to watch the weight like obsessive people but it's what you have to do.  But MY rules are that he can watch his weight and even "cut" his weight but only by eating healthy and making smart choices.

No plastic pants, no crazy diets, no "I"m not eating" stuff...

So yesterday was his last tournament of the season.  He has decided not to play lacrosse this year (yes, I wipe a tear as I type this as I do so love watching me some lacrosse...all that running and beating each other with sticks...it's so...so...awesome!).

I sorta wish he would quit football too but he says he will play at least one more year.  He doesn't want to play Varsity so I am hoping they don't make him.  I hate all that hitting...and the sound that the helmets make as they crash into each other.

I remember my first game as a cheerleader and I heard that sound of "helmet on helmet" for the first time and I literally dropped my pompoms and swore I would never have a boy so I wouldn't have to have a football player.

Well I was wrong on both accounts...I have a son...I have  football player...

But in reality he is a wrestler...and now, after 4 years of it...I have come to the acceptance that I will spend many many hours in a gym watching boys in leotards roll around on mats with each other.

So yesterday he took 3rd in the tournament.  I was busting proud because all the boys he beat were older and more experienced.  He lost to one kid and won 3 others...not bad for a freshman.

I have a very special place in my heart for his coach.

8 years ago when me and the ex took TCBITW to camp for the first time we were greeted by...oh heavens he needs a name...let's just call him WC for Wrestling Coach...

So the door to the car is opened by WC who in one breath announces to me that he saw the sticker on the back of my car for my son's school and that he would be coaching wrestling there next year and did my son wrestle?

Gripping the door and trying to close it as fast as possible and wanting to yell at the ex to get us the hell outta there I look at WC and say:

"no...he's only 8 years old!"

I think that is the end of it...

but noooooooooo,,,,

from the back of the suburban a tiny little deep voice says:

"Oh!  I want to wrestle!  Yes I am going to wrestle!"

and he launches himself out of the car and grins up at WC and well...that pretty much did it...

From that point on my son thinks that WC is the greatest guy on the planet (he is pretty great..and he's quite young to be a coach and is awesome)...and all my son has wanted to do is to be coached by WC and on his team...

So this year the dream came true...and my son was coached by WC who has unshakeable faith in my kid and loves him like a big brother and I know will always take care of him.

I stood next to WC before my son's last match and as I hugged him I told him "thank you for being so good to TCBITW...this has been an amazing season"...and I reminded him of that day we dropped TCBITW off at camp when he declared that he would wrestle.

and after my son's last match, WC came running over to me and we hugged and I cried again and WC told me he was so proud to be his coach and how happy he was that after all this time it finally happened.

Our boys did super great...I was proud of all of them, not just my son.

And as proud as I was of my son I had one tiny bittersweet moment as I watched one of his teammates who I will call "Pretty Eyed Joe" (PEJ for short) because that is what the boys call him...

PEJ is the son of my dearly departed friend Laura...I wrote a blog about her after we lost her to breast cancer.  Before she passed away I promised PEJ I would always be his "mama by the mat"...

And after every meet, and sometimes during it, I hold that boy and tell him how much I love him and how proud I am of my "extra son".

When he won his weight class yesterday I cried...I was sad that his mother was not there to share that with him...

but she was...she is just the sweetest prettiest angel in heaven watching down...

and just before he got on the podium to accept his medal he turned to me and hugged me and I told him once again how proud I was of him and how much I loved him...because his mama needed me to say that for her (I didn't tell him that...I wanted it to be a happy moment) and when he placed the medal on his neck I swear I could feel her next to me watching that beautiful boy grin like the champ he was...

It's an awesome sport...a sport I have come to love just as much as I have come to love the boys on my son's team...boys who never once treated him like:
the new kid
just a freshman
the jerk who took my spot on the varsity team

no, they never did that to him...they have watched over him, befriended him, driven him to practice, supported him on the sidelines, screamed and yelled with joy when he wins and comforted him when he loses...

They are his brothers...and they are a group of young men I would proudly call my own...they make good grades...they help each other...they never are nasty to each other but they do have so much fun together...they are like their own little strange fraternity...

and I love all of the parents...

I'm glad my son wrestles...he has been told by boys who don't wrestle that it is "gay" (too bad in our world that is not in insult to us but it is insulting as we have many gay people we love so we find that offensive)...he has been told "it's not a real sport" (really?  oh yeah...no longer in the Olympics...but it is a damn great sport anyway)...he has been told "that's such an easy sport" (I'd like to put that kid on the mat with mine and see what happens)...

and each and every time he has stood his ground and loves his sports...even when it means he couldn't eat pizza...and had to give up every Saturday for meets...and came home more exhausted from practice than after football...

he will miss it..and his team mates....and I will miss the parents and the boys...we are a funny little extended family...you have to be when you spend 8 hours on bleachers together...yelling your lungs out...holding your breath as you pray for a match to end and the last 10 seconds feel like an hour...as you slump exhausted back in your seat (trying not to slip into the footpath of the bleachers) after watching a boy fight his heart out and come off the mat dripping in sweat and nearly out of breath...

it is an amazing sport...

There are worse things in life than watching a boy grapple another boy on a mat while wearing a leotard...as long as said leotard is not white...

Inspiration Song "Only the Young" by Journey....end credits song to the movie "Vision Quest" which may pretty much be one of the only movies about wrestling...great 80's flick with Matthew Modine and an awesome 80's soundtrack...and because only the young can wear a singlet...

Bye Darlings...you have about 8 months before you hear me eat my words and I start complaining about wrestling again...but for now I love it...

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