Here is an exert from my autobiography that I think we can all relate to as wrestlers.

Excerpts from THE STRUGGLE IS THE GLORY the autobiography of Bobby Douglas

"The Brotherhood of Wrestling".

First, let me begin by relating what, for many wrestlers, is a common experience.

You enter a public place – say a mall, or a seven-eleven wearing something that identifies you as a wrestling partisan. Maybe it’s your letterman’s jacket or perhaps a souvenir t-shirt from some wrestling tourney. Soon, a complete stranger come up to you and asks the questions, “Hey did you wrestle?” When you reply, “Why yes,” this (up to now) stranger begins relating his own wrestling experiences. This man may have wrestled 30 or more years earlier, but the memories are still so fresh in his mind that he relates to them as if they were yesterday.

Like old Marines reliving boot camp, wrestlers connect in a secret brotherhood – in a way that outsiders cannot understand.

Wrestlers and former wrestlers of all ages share a bond. The shared sacrifice of the most demanding of all sports has left an indelible imprint on their person that time cannot erase. The bond that wrestling and wrestlers share transcends not only age, but race, creed and social status.

Sports have always served to break down social barriers. Naturally, wrestling, because of its personal nature, hastens that process. In an increasingly fragmented society when people are divided up by age and race, it is both refreshing and enlightening to visit the local wrestling programs.

At the local club level, kids from the country, inner city, and suburbs all strive to reach a common goal. The members from these teams represent a true cross-section of present day America across race across barriers, a true microcosm of a rainbow society.

The wrestlers also bring their parents, loved ones and supportive fans together across these lines. As these wrestling boosters cheer their kids on and work collectively to support their wrestlers efforts, ancient lies and invisible barriers are quietly crushed under the weight of wrestling’s brutal truth and honesty.

The wrestling code is simple; Discipline and hard work vs. regret. In wrestling a young man soon recognizes the direct correlation between hard work and success. Wrestling is a sport stripped of pretenses. At the end of the match (win or lose), you stand there and receive your reward or disappointment.

Those would be deceivers are revealed by the harsh light of competition. Imposters soon blanch. Only the truly faithful, the hearty, the ones with true grit survive.

For many youths wrestling represents the first tentative step towards achievement of manhood. For the first time in their lives they begin to understand the meaning of fidelity to an organization or team committed to ones self and others.
Wrestling demands much from its participants. Our sport is uncompromising in that respect. Perhaps that is why so many fathers continue to be active and stay involved in wrestling. They are, maybe, trying to install in their sons the first lessons of manhood. As a man ages, he enters the complex world we live in. The line between right and wrong can at times be blurred. The sharp colors and hues of boyhood can turn gray. The idealist issues of youth begin to fade. A man can never recapture his youth, but the skills and lessons learned by our wrestlers last a lifetime, about being an understanding citizen, about life.

It is true you cannot recapture your youth but a man can perhaps recapture who he once was. Physical skills will diminish, that is a given, as no man can stop the relentless surge of time. Lessons, however, need not fade. Strip away the baggage of adulthood from any wrestler, or former wrestler, and you will still find the passionate soul of a leader, a warrior, a person with honor.

By Mark Munson