Well it?s Friday night and I?m coming to you LIVE from our team study hall in the conference room at the SpringHill Suites Brookhaven.
We?re on the road for this weekend?s Center Moriches Duals where we?ll wrestle 9 matches over the next two days.
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The Center Moriches Tournament in Suffolk County has been a significant event on our schedule for six years now. This tournament allows us to compete against some of the best programs in New York State and really helps prepare our guys to excel at the Sectional and State Championships.
That being said, I believe one of the most important purposes of high school athletics, generally, and wrestling, specifically, is to challenge our kids both mentally and physically. We constantly strive to help our wrestlers develop a growth mindset and forge the grit and resilience that will make them successful in any endeavor for the rest of their lives. Wrestling is simply our vehicle to reach these objectives.
It?s through this lens of character development that participation in a tournament of this caliber really becomes so important for our student-athletes. The challenges of traveling far from home for a few days, weighing-in two days in a row and competing against nine teams in as much time create difficult circumstances that are hard to reproduce otherwise, and that inevitably lead to some failures. We use this tournament to intentionally manufacture adversity.
It?s not the adversity itself that makes such a difference for our wrestlers, though, it?s the reaction to that adversity. Every year, away from home, without the comfort or counsel of their parents, our student-athletes are forced to pull together, lead and serve each other, and rise above the circumstances they face. They are made to deal with setbacks and, as a team, find ways to stay positive and move forward together - all within the relative safety net of high school athletics.
I don?t exaggerate when I say that participation in this tournament each year plays a significant part in not only the competitive success of our program, but, more importantly, in the creation of strong, tough-minded, resilient young men and women who eventually leave our program and go on to accomplish even loftier achievements in the rest of their lives.
If you couldn?t tell, I?m fired up for this weekend! It didn?t hurt that we watched ?Miracle? on the bus ride out here either! Seriously, though, there should be some great match-ups this weekend!
That?s about all I?ve got time for right now - we?re gonna wrap up study hall in a few minutes and then start getting these guys down to weight for weigh-ins tomorrow morning.
Stay tuned next week for a look at how we?ve been competing!
Talk to you soon!
Feed the Panther!
Peter Jacobson
Head Coach
Edgemont Wrestling