Wrestling Blogs - Richard Rockwell

I've always said the thing that separates wrestling from the other sports, are the memories we have from our trips to meets or the overnight trips.

If you are in an area like mine, where you travel at least 2hrs to get matches and go as far as 4hrs sometimes, you tend to spend a lot of time on the road, with your team.

You learn over time that wrestling starts to become its own brotherhood of sorts and you tend to bond more with your teammates or kids you coach more so than any other sport.

So, I'm here to tell you some of my memories. While I don't have any stories quite like Eric Guerrero's trip in Siberia or Ben Askren's recent stories from Russia, mine are still quite memorable.

I can remember having these huge wrestling bags back in high school. So, big one time our 98lber(really only about 80lbs) getting cold on a long bus ride and finding out that he could actually fit inside the bag and sleep in it. One of the funniest things I saw. Just picture this little tiny wrestler all zipped up in a wrestling bag to stay warm.

I can remember everytime we went on a trip, we always tried to sneak some junk food in our bags for after we wrestled. Our coach, who was a probation officer, would always walk down the aisles and search our bags. No matter how hard we tried, he'd always find our stash, grab it and proceed to eat it as he walked down the aisle. Soon you learned to not even bother.

In college, I can remember making a long road trip down to Reno and getting two days to play before we had to wrestle. I remember some English cab driver not letting a black guy in a cab and thinking what a douche he was for doing that. Real eye opener for me as I didn't think people were actually like that.

I also remember having to cut weight all day on Thanksgiving Day and still being a 1lb over. Now keep in mind, I was 5'9" and cutting from 135 to 118 and was already about 7% bodyfat, so it kind of sucked, but I'm preaching to the choir. Anyways, I remember us going to a sauna and just chilling in it for awhile. This was my first time so I wasn't doing so well. Anyways, after about a half an hour, we go to check our weight. I'm still a half pound over, but I'm still wearing this tiny sweat pants, converted into shorts looking things. I tell my coach I'm going to weigh without them and he's convinced it won't matter. I weighed 121.5 with them on and 119 without them. I was relieved.

The Legend of the Habanero

We have a tradition at our school, all freshman have to eat a habanero pepper. For those who don't know what that is, its about the hottest pepper you can eat. Anyways, some kids are arguing over who's going to eat the pepper, as another kid is sleeping the seat next to them. This kid finally gets tired of arguing and just grabs whatever they have out of their hand and puts it in his mouth, not knowing what he just ate. The other kids just freeze and stare at him. The kid finishes chewing it, swallows and about 5 secs. later realizes what he just ate and proceeds to grab anything he can drink and chug it. So this kid goes from being a pound under, to about 4lbs over in a matter of minutes. He spent the rest of the night running.

The next year, same situation, only this time about four kids do it and they run out of water. One kid gets desperate and starts licking the condesation off of the windows. Just imagine some helpless kid with a worried look on his face when he realizes there's nothing to drink and he spots a window with some condensation on it. You would've thought he won a million dollars, he was so excited. While gross and funny, I had to give the kid credit for being resourceful.

The following year, same scenario, only this time they con me into doing it. I nut up and take the biggest pepper and chew it up. Let's just say, I don't ever remember sweating that much during practice because that pepper was hot and I was sweating like crazy. However, I was the only one man enough not to throw it up. Pansies.

This year, we're at a tournament and the kids load up on the peppers and proceed to hand them all out. Only this time, we have a number of 8th graders with us who are willing to get this little tradition out of the way early. They are agruing over who goes first and my oldest boy(5th grader) says "quit being a bunch of pansies," and grabs a pepper and eats it. They couldn't believe that this little kid is showing them up, so they all go for it. All of them are doing fine except for this one little guy, but he's trying to still look like a bad ass. So, he's strutting down the hotel hallway drinking a little and making weird breathing noises, all the while sweating like hell with his eyes tearing up.

That's all for now, but there is plenty of more to come.