First Wrestling Tournament

Friday was Shane's birthday and the first official tournament of the season! I helped set up during my planning period and after school ended. Coach Wendell started things, but I took over mat rolling and mat taping while he worked on Trackwrestling and tech.

I got some nasty cardboard cuts on the tape squad (like papercuts, but worse!).

I left during weigh-ins to pick up Shane and bring him out. He likes wrestling tournaments! Plus, I knew my old team would be around!

Shane immediately latched on to Jin's leg!

I saw a bunch of familiar faces. Most of them had gone through growth spurts, too! I was really happy to see everyone.

Shane and I hit up the hospitality room for dinner. They started the coaches meeting while we were in there. People started laughing and Shane joined in. When they stopped he announced, "I was laughing, because I had no idea what was funny!"

And he says he's shy sometimes...

I spent most of the night behind a score table. 

It was harder than I realized.

No, not the software! What was hard was staying utterly focused on the referee and nothing else. If I started to watch the wrestling I wasn't as quick on the clock.

Without fail, Coach Palmer came over multiple times and asked questions just as there was a flurry of action.

Coach Palmer's daughter volunteered at the beginning of the night and then it was Coach Winfrey and me for a while. There was one match where both boys looked like brothers in nearly identical singlets that could only be termed as "Challenge Mode." Neither boy had much experience and they were flopping back and forth between reversals until the ref was twisted up and had to check with us to see what had been happening!

Shane spent most of his time in the wrestling room.

I borrowed a dock from a kid (Jay) and left Shane playing Angry Birds happily. He played on the phone most of the time, but went a little wild with some pool noodles, too.

He abused the training dummy in ways it was not meant to be abused (That's not how you do a flying squirrel, Shane!).

I brought him out for food and to force some socialization.....and he started latching on to the legs of wrestlers on other teams! Jin tried to talk him out of talking the kid with the mullet (Whom three different adults looked at and said, "With that haircut, he better win!" haha!).

Carrie was asleep by the time we got home around 9:45 PM. The tournament was still underway, but I wanted to get Shane home and in bed. It was a long day! We both had fun, though.