3/12/21 - Friday Forget-Me-Nots by Jim Silcott

Photo Caption: A glorious day in the Ga Ga Pit!

Dear Our Lady of Peace Family:

Did you ever miss a goal that you were so close to accomplishing that you could taste it? How did it make you feel? What did you want your friends and family to say to you or not say to you? Did you consider it a failure of the whole process towards the goal or did you use that close call to help you to achieve the next one?

My stepson, Stephen, came within one point of his goal. As a senior wrestler for Granville High School he had worked for four years to be able to become a state qualifier in wrestling by the time of his senior year. He missed it by seconds.

 He had come to wrestling relatively late having only started towards the end of middle school while many of the top notch grapplers begin as young children. At first he was pretty awful. He picked up a nickname in those early days. Bambi on ice, as he flailed under his opponents, arms outstretched on the mat in seeming surrender.

Freshman year he played football and wrestled. As a matter of fact he took up wrestling to get him in better shape for football. During that year he almost quit. But some influential coaches and the parent of a fellow team member saw potential in him and encouraged him to keep at it. He started doing extra training and at the end of ninth grade he was named most improved player on the team.

Sophomore year went better for him. In wrestling during postseason you begin in sectionals. Top four makes it to districts and the top four in districts make to the state tournament. The nice thing about wrestling is that athletes of all sizes can excel. Stephen had high hopes in tenth grade of getting out of sectionals into the districts. Then on the first day he received a concussion after being thrown rather hard onto the mat. That ended his season. Still he was named most improved player on the team again.

That spring and summer and fall he continued to train. He added strength conditioning to his regimin. When junior year season came about his regular season record was not impressive. He went to one of his non-school coaches, Joe Heskett, for advice who talked more to him about life than about wrestling. Just before the postseason began Joe suffered a very severe stroke. Inspired by Joe’s advice and determined to win for Joe, Stephen made it to the districts where he beat a top ranked opponent before finally being defeated. He earned Most improved player for the third time in a row. His teammate, Douglas, whose father had been such a help to him had made it to the states as a sophomore. He made it again junior year and then…the pandemic hit and the state tournament was cancelled. No one got to go last year.

Stephen continued to train. He added a study of nutrition to his repitorie of how to be better. Senior year was his year to make it out of districts and qualify for the states. He wanted his name on the wall in the wrestling room at Granville.

In the sectional tournament, despite having a 26-12 record against good competition he found himself unseeded. That meant that he would have to face the toughest competion early. The smart money was not on him to even make it to the districts let alone the state finals. But Stephen stepped onto the mats at sectionals and beat every ranked opponent he faced and he became the champion of the sectionals in the 145 pound weight class.

In District play he beat his first opponent. In his second match he lost but was able to wrestle a third match on the first day to advance him on to second day competition where he could still compete for third or fourth place which would qualilfy him for the states.

On the second day, in the match that would determine state placement, Stephen wrestled the first three regulation periods to a 1-1 tie. In overtime, on a controversial call by the referee Stephen was assessed a penalty pont as he tried to wriggle out of the arms of his opponent and stepped outside of the circle. Sudden death. Whistle blown. Wrestling over for the year, for the career, forever for Stephen.

His Mom and I watched in sadness, not for the loss but because, and you all know this, because we love our children and we want for them what they want for themselves. If Stephen had been a chess player and lost a close tournament that he wanted to win we would have been just as sad. But Stephen is a wrestler and his goal was one point away from attainment.

Stephen will be graduating in a couple of months. He is undecided about the college he will attend but was accepted to five and has narrowed his choices to two. He wants to be a doctor and he knows that this will goal will be even harder and longer and more difficult to achieve than reaching the state tournament in athletic competition. His inspiration during this wrestling journey has been a quote from Theodore Roosevelt, and the ending of his words are all you need to know about reaching for a goal, even if you miss it by one point:

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

I have full confidence that although Stephen’s goal technically was not achieved, the journey, the struggle, and his commitment has made him a better man who will achieve many goals in his life because of his willingness to reach for the top. I couldn’t be prouder of this young man and I know that his father, who passed away from cancer when Stephen was younger, as well as his mother, whom I was lucky enough to meet and marry, couldn’t be prouder of him either. Stephen is the man in the arena and I give him a standing ovation to him and all, including our students, who strive for goals of any kind.



Jim Silcott