Wrestling pre season is currently underway at Jonathan Alder High School. This means little to many JAHS students. Wrestling doesn’t get nearly as much attention as our other sports, such as football, but it should. Wrestling is a sport that takes more dedication and strength than most other sports in high school. Here at Jonathan Alder, many students wouldn’t know the first thing about the team or any of their many successes over the years. Few students have even been to a match.

   Ohio is number four on the list of greatest wrestling states for high school in the nation, according to The Open Mat. In order to be a great wrestler, you have to be committed around late elementary school, which means year-round practicing and controlling your diet. It is an extremely difficult sport to excel in otherwise. Wrestling takes extreme dedication, physical strength, and mental toughness.

    In recent years at JAHS, we’ve had many great wrestlers. Of the most successful was alumna Troy Caldwell, who won the OHSAA Wrestling State Tournament both his junior and senior year as a heavy weight and went on to join The Ohio State University’s wrestling program. Currently, senior Jake Johnson is looking forward to a promising season. Johnson is a two time league champion, two time sectional champion, MOAC 2017 MVP, and a two time state qualifier 99  currently and will likely hit his 100th career win in their first meet.

    Many people who are not devout wrestling fans are unaware that The Ohio State University is also home to literally the greatest wrestler in the world. Kyle Snyder is a heavyweight redshirt senior at OSU. Snyder has too many career accomplishments to list. He is both the youngest Olympic gold medalist as well as the youngest world champion in American Wrestling History. Snyder is now a name on the same platform with Jesse Owens. Wrestlers work very hard on their own to receive a fraction of the credit that whole sports teams get. Wrestling is one of the most trying sports, though it does not get nearly the amount of recognition it deserves, especially at the high school level.

    Being around wrestling for most of my life, I have witnessed firsthand the difficulty of the sport. Watching my brother improve from open tournaments in elementary school to high school tournaments over the years has only deepened my admiration for the sport and it’s competitors. Attending matches from all divisions of college wrestling as well has also re-instilled my certainty that wrestling is one of the most difficult sports and therefore should be known and appreciated as such.

    Unlike other team sports that are highly praised and viewed, wrestling is about the ability of one person versus another. A wrestler has no team to fall back on when he is down in a match. Not many people realize the strength and technique that is required to overpower another person after spending weeks cutting weight and training vigorously. Wrestling is an Olympic sport that has been around since the Olympics began and is competed in all over the world. Nevertheless, many people would rather watch and participate in football, baseball, and other team sports of the like.