Victor Nguyen

        The meet was at Glenvar Middle School so we had to drive the bus there, which wasn’t too bad. It only took about 30 minutes. When we got there I was very nervous. My stomach felt like it was getting stabbed about 100 hundred times. And then the anxiety came in. I get anxiety too many times. I am a little used to it, but I still hate the feeling. There was still an hour until the first match actually began, so we were just trying to get in the mood.

         Wrestling was the first sport I actually did and it was in eighth grade. Many people tell me that I looked like a football player, but I think I wasn’t built enough to do football.

       Some of my peers have been wrestling for years so they had a high percentage of winning their matches. They looked very confident especially one of our captains, Garrett. 

      The first match began, This was the first match I had ever seen and it was awesome. There was a lot of yelling, so my ears felt like they were bleeding. After the 10th match it was my match.                                                                                                                                          Garrett said,” Be aggressive, but don’t shoot!”   I was the heaviest person on our team.    I weighed 196 pounds, but our Coach was a bit cheeky at times and would put some of us in higher weight classes. One of them was me, Coach put me at 210 pounds.  So if I did shoot he would just drop and I would be pinned.                                                                                                                                                                                   When I saw my opponent I immediately knew I was going to lose. He was a red head, bigger than I was, and look liked he had wrestled more than once. Before I stepped on the mat my coach came up to me and said,” Don’t get pinned!”

So we shook hands and the match began.                                                                                                                                           My heart was beating so fast I was lightheaded. He came straight towards me, but then I did something I didn’t even mean to do. I got behind him used my legs to pull his legs backwards and he fell onto his stomach. So then I grabbed his wrist, took him to his back, and waited for the ref. Ten seconds later he smacked his hand on the mat and I won! I stood up with the happiest face ever, and my friends laughed! We then shook hands again and went to shake hands with the coaches on the opposite team. I came back to my coach and shook his hand. My friends ran at me with hugs, which was kind of weird.

           Looking back on it now I still smile at the thought of it. But after that match I lost all the other seven matches, except for the five forfeits I got.