1st Match

A few days ago I wrote a post about Charlie wrestling. Last night was his first real match and he lost. I wanted to say that first so I could get it out of the way and tell you about how great this kid did.
Our first match of the year was against The Colony Cougars. It took Casey and I about an hour to get there with rush hour traffic. Mark met us there, coming straight from work. I was pretty nervous, remembering last week. Charlie had said that some kids wouldn't get to wrestle, depending on the opposing teams wrestlers, whether they had enough of the same size/weight. So, we weren't sure we'd get to see him wrestle. The JV was up first and we watched some of Charlies friends kick butt and some got their butts kicked. Charlie was the third to last wrestler in JV, and when they called up his opponent, I thought there had to be a mistake. The kid was a poster child for steroids. They called out the weight class...'160'. Wait, no way. Charlie is in the 140 weight class. We saw Charlie say something to the people keeping the score and checking them in (two high school girls), they shook their heads, shrugged their shoulders, and Charlie took to the mat.
Mark and I just kind of looked at each other, wondering if we should go get him or not. The parents behind us happened to be the parents of steroid boy, we found out as they started cheering their son on. I asked them, 'did they say 160?' and they said yes. Mark and I just shook our heads.
The boys shook hands and the whistle blew and it was on! I'm no longer a casual observer, I'm a participant. I love this sport. No, not a misprint, I LOVE this sport! The effort these kids put into this is so apparent, and when they don't put much effort in, that's apparent too. Charlie was on this kid like a tiger, not kidding. I've never seen Charlie like this before, it's amazing. Schwarzenegger picks Charlie up and slams him down, no effort. But Charlie is scooting, turning, pushing himself up and on top of this other kid. It's so cool to be sitting so close to be able to see the focus, the determination and the strength in his face. I ask the Incredible Hulks parents how long he's been wrestling and they say 3 years. Wow. I tell them this is Charlies first match and they tell me they can remember what I must be going through. Pride, that's what I'm going through.
They blow the whistle, and Charlie has made it through the first quarter, the first 2 minutes.
Of course, Charlie is confused and thinks it's over. Starts to go shake hands with The Predator's coaches till he hears people telling him it's not over, lol. He gets pinned pretty quickly in the second quarter. God love him. Not bad, not bad at all. His first match and he has to take on some guy who has 20 lbs and 3 years of wrestling on him, and the kid held his own with style, class and real balls. Never been so proud of him.
I want to say that I don't hold anything whatsoever against this kid that Charlie wrestled, I'm just kidding with the names. It's just a mistake that was made, and I'm okay with it. Actually, we told Charlie to consider it good practice. The other kid was just really good (larger and more experienced, lol), but Charlie has nothing to be ashamed of.
By the way, our Allen Eagles won the match 54 ~ 24. I barely have a voice left this morning. Loved every single minute of it!!
Yeah, the ref may have been holding up 'The Teminators' hand, but Charlie was the winner in my eyes.
It's so cool being a parent.