Last year, I decided on redshirting for the year. I qualified for a major wrestling tournament overseas and I wanted to focus on training for it rather than wrestling every weekend in various competitions for our team. Redshirting would also allow me to sharpen more skills and be able to focus on things other than my sport. However, our 125-pounder could not make weight anymore and we did not have a backup at the time. My interests were in training for this one tournament and getting bigger in order to be a strong 133-pounder. But the team would have had to forfeit 125 every match, so I decided to make a major weight cut from about 145lbs. Our main goal as a team is to win. We have many other goals such as being a family and being there for each other but more than anything we want to win. With the forfeit, we would not have won a single match from the point in December when our old 125-pounder decided to not make weight.
Although our direct interests did not align, our program is built on more things than just winning, which has helped me become a better person. It has helped me get into a great university and compete at the sport I love. It provides me with an outlet to compete to my highest ability while also pursuing the things most important to me such as God, family, and everyone who has helped me get to where I am today. If I had let the team continue to lose, I would have felt terrible about myself and would have truly been free riding on the amazing opportunity that I have been given. Wrestling is the public good that I have been given by the team and cutting weight is the tax that I am giving back in order to further the teams interest of winning.
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