Logan’s First Wrestling Tournament!

Logan finally wrestled in his first tournament today. It was in State College, at a tournament called Break The Chains. I chose this one since it had a 1st year division. But before I go into the details of the tournament, let me tell you about why it took this long for his tourny…

Back in December, there was a youth tournament at UPJ, but we could not go to it because it was the weekend we were doing Christmas with my brother. As some of you know, Logan can be shy at times, and even though he is getting over it, he can still have these moments. So the week before the tournament, I was taking Logan to practice, and I told him about the tournament (I did not want the coach to mention it, and Logan get mad that he could not go). I said “Logan, there is a tournament next weekend…” He started bawling, saying he did not want to do it. I had to calm him down, and say that he could not go regardless. After that, he was weird going to practice the next few days. He would be all sad and mopey, and then he started saying he did not want to go. Then a few weeks later, they had their intersquad dual meet, and he had a great time. After that he has asked like ten thousand times when he could do a tournament. Kids are weird.

The 1st year session started at 2:00 p.m., but weigh-ins were between 12:00 and 1:00. I was not sure about the weather situation, so I wanted to leave early enough to give us plenty of time. The weather was fine on the way over, so we ended up getting there at 11:55. Youth wrestling tournaments have changed since I was a kid (granted, the only ones I did as a little kid were the Junior Olympics qualifiers at P-O. I decided to just ask the person at the registration table what was going on. There were so many people, and it felt very chaotic. The guy said Logan had to weigh in, then we just needed to follow the bouts on FloArena. Well that is much easier than listening for your name to be called. Cool.

Logan was able to wrestle at 40 lbs (he weighed 39.8 this morning, and the site said no weight allowance), he ate some cereal before we left, and I was curious if he would be at 40, or if we would need to bump him up to 45. I assumed there would be a locker room, so I just had Logan wear clothes. There was not a locker room, so we had to put his singlet on in the bathroom. He stepped on the scale with his singlet on, and he weighed 40.something, but the lady marked him as 40 since he had clothes on. After that we just hung out for like two hours. We ate some food, then warmed up on the mat for a bit. 

My brother came to help me out (since Lindsey could not make it, I was not sure if I could try to coach and record his match–although, I will get to the coaching aspect in a bit)…okay, enough talking, here are the matches!

There were 16 kids at 40 lbs, so instead of doing a big single-elimination bracket, they broke the 1st year kids into smaller, round-robin tournaments. There were five kids in Logan’s group. His first match did not go so well, the kid pinned him in :24. That kid pinned everyone in the first period.

The second match went much better. Logan actually shot, and he managed to get the kid on his back, and secure the pin. It was getting close to the end of the period (they do 1-1-1s), and the ref slaps the mat at :54. 

 This was a tough match. Logan lost 21-6 (TF 2:49), but as you can see, he was winning, and had the kid on his back. Logan just does not know what to do at that point. We have some work to do.

So one of the funny things about trying to coach a five-year-old is that the positions they get into are like nothing you ever see. Also, by the time you yell one thing, they are already rolling through to some other weird position. I regret not helping out at the elementary practices. It would have been nice to know what moves he was learning, and what they call certain things. 

He went 1-3, finished in 4th place. He was excited, and said he wants to do more tournaments. He also wants to practice more at home. I think he really loved it. Logan was smiling the entire time, even when getting taken down to his back (watch those videos, you can see him smiling at times, it is very amusing). There were so many kids crying when they lost (some were crying while they were winning). Logan was having fun. I am proud of him!