Example Story

My elementary years were some of the hardest years of my life. I was the fat kid. I wore glasses. I was part of the Spectrum program which is basically the smart kids classes. I wasn’t part of the dominant religion of the area. And frankly, I was pretty nerdy. Still am, really. I’ve just learned to care more about my own opinion of myself.

At home, I had a loving family, but my father did have a temper problem. Technically, I have my father’s temper, I’ve just spent my whole life learning how to suppress it. He was big into sports. Baseball and Taekwondo were his things. He pushed both onto us. Based on my previous description of myself, you can guess that I really wasn’t good at either. I probably could have been better at baseball, but I refused to wear my glasses, and, well, you can’t hit what you can’t see. And taekwondo, well… I just didn’t like it.

Needless to say, I waws struggling in this thing called life.

I did find musical theater, which to this day, I still love, but that didn’t satisfy my father because it’s not a sport.

When I hit junior high, I decided to give wrestling a try. I was still the fat and mostly out of shape kid. In seventh grade, I was wrestling as a heavy weight, which at that time was anything over 189 pounds. I don’t know exactly what I weighed because they would just set the scale to 275 pounds and as long as you were lighter than that, you passed the weigh in. It was my first year wrestling and I was wrestling against kids who had been wrestling for years. To say I was at a disadvantage would be an understatement.

You know what I came to learn pretty quickly though? I was good at it.

Ok, maybe that’s an overstatement. At a practice one day, I learned a head throw. From a standing grapple, you step through grabbing around your opponent’s head, drop you weight to the ground, and if done correctly, it takes them straight to their back. I was kind of a one trick pony. I had my head throw and not much else. But it worked. My 8th and 9th grade years, I placed at the region and district tournaments.

Moving forward into high school, I maintained my prowess. I still mostly just had my head throw. It got the point that everyone knew it was coming. But you know what? They couldn’t stop it. I placed 3rd and 4th in the state my junior and senior years

Wrestling gave me medals. It gave me more acceptance from my father because I was finally into a sport. But really, I have to sat that wrestling gave me something so much more. Really, it saved my life. I went from a depressed, fat, constantly made fun of kid, to having at least one room where I was accepted by me peers.

The team was down by 4 points going into the heavyweight match.

They needed a pin to win.

The wrestlers stepped onto the mat, and all you could hear was the entire crowd chanting, “Pratt! Pratt! Pratt! Pratt!”

You bet I got that pin, taking our team to a victory.

There’s a lot you can take away from this. Elementary and middle school can be hard. Kids can be mean. I was borderline suicidal at times, but never attempted because I waws afraid I couldn’t even do that right.

Lesson 1: Just be kind. There is no reason that overweight little kid should have been on to the point of feeling that way.

Lesson 2: Nobody else should dictate who you are. Only you get to define that, and it may not be the first thing you try. Learn, grow, and become who you want to be.

Lesson 3: Find your wrestling. We all need that something that makes us feel at home. That gives us the family we never knew we needed.  

And when you find your something, just know, that I am there at the side of the mat, or the court, or the rodeo arena, or in the seats of the theater… screaming out for you. “Pratt, Pratt, Pratt, Pratt…”