After I printed out the state weight class rankings yesterday morning and saw the caliber of competition, I grew so excited. I wanted to know who was wrestling who so badly that I did something that I have never done: I filled out the brackets as the matches occurred.
That gets to be pretty difficult when you have three matches going on simultaneously!
When my son’s first match came up, I left my bracket sheet on my seat and went down to the mat to shout my encouragement/advice during the match.
After he won, I returned to my seat and turned to ask a man standing on the top bleacher who won the other two matches while I was away. He answered me and then came down to my row and introduced himself.
It turns out that he is a VERY successful high school wrestling coach that has been hired by a private Methodist university to start a wrestling program next year! He said that he was interested in my son!
I responded that a private school is probably pretty expensive. He said, “$28,000 per year.” He then started explaining a few of the scholarship options that he has at his disposal to offer my son!
My wife and I visited the university this morning since it is only 40 minutes away from our apartment! It is a nice, small campus (4,000 students) with an excellent academic reputation. Fraternity row is on one side and sorority row on the other (keep the boys and girls as far away from each other as possible). So far, everyone that I have spoken to has had nothing but VERY good things to say about the university AND the coach!
10 months ago, I told my son that if he worked hard at wrestling and academics, he had a chance to earn a scholarship. It looks like that just might be happening!
OOOOH! I’m so excited for him!