Wrestling is its own world and has its own community and everyone who is apart has a starting point. Our CCHS and CMS students, 7th grade ZaNias Johnson, 12th grade Aydean Swan, 12 grade Connor Daly, and the middle school wrestling Assistant Coach/ Kolbi Caffey 

There is a debate within wrestlers whether starting the sport at an early age is better than starting in high school where lots of people find out about the sport. Everyone who wrestles has a story and a different reason for joining the sport. To anyone who has or still wrestles has benefited from the sport in a different way whether its physical or mental or emotional ad etc. The sport brings out a different version and those who are touched by the sport might have a different goal than others. 

“Probably to get to college and get around 100 trophies/awards by the time I get in to high school,” Johnson said.

Johnson’s motivation is the awards and his main reason for starting his wrestling career is older brother inspired him to start wrestling. After seeing the good things the sport has done for him he also wanted to improve himself.

As a young wrestler who started his career in middle school he feels like joining in middle is better because it’s less stressful and you would have built a name for yourself by the time you get into high school. 

Daly who has been wrestling since he was six years old, does agree it is better to start as young as possible, he feels this way for many reasons one being the sport has been a family thing. Another being it helps you in the sport immensely. 

“It gives you a lot more time to learn the technique and just what it takes to wrestle,” Daly said

Wrestling has helped Daly grow as a person and as an athlete as well.

“The hard work aspect to it, it’s something I’ll take throughout my whole life,” Daly said

Swan is a wrestler who started in high school but agrees with Daly.

“I think you should start as young as you can to get as much experience as you can” Swan said. 

Swan started wrestling initially to get better at football and ended up falling in love with the sport which is common in the wrestling community especially in high school. Swan has taken all that wrestling has taught him such as his and his own body’s limits and applied it to his everyday life. His main goal with wrestling is to continue wrestling in college and be the best college wrestler.

Coach Caffey wrestled before and wanted to stay in the wrestling field somehow after high school and wants to see Carbondale wrestling do well. Coach believes it’s more beneficial to join before high school because learning/perfecting your craft before puberty is going to help immensely. 

Coach Caffey believes that wrestling is more than just a sport and believes the sport is beneficial in many aspects of life and can help you in the future moving forward.

“There’s a lot of tough situations in wrestling and it mimics life” Coach Caffey said

“It teaches you how to persevere” Coach Caffey said