WIN FEATURE COLUMN Wrestling is cool, you define cool
Stay the course. Odds. The ratio between the amounts staked by the parties to
a bet, based on the expected probability either way. Peer pressure. The influence from members of one’s peer
group. In America, our wrestling tradition runs deep, but not our pop-
ularity. Tireless effort doesn’t always generate results and results don’t always generate recognition. Have you ever felt the burden of being uncommon? It takes courage to put it all on the line with no guarantees in
the end and no fans in the stands. Odds are you won’t make it big and your peers think it isn’t worth it. But what do you think? Are you still willing to stay the course and trail-blaze your own path? In the process of creating a lasting legacy of my own in an oftentimes undervalued sport, I reflect on my life as a wrestler. As a youth athlete growing up in Sicklerville, N.J., it was
every young man’s dream to compete on the biggest stages in the world of sports. That could mean scoring a touchdown for your favorite NFL team on Sundays or throwing down an alley- oop in the NBA finals, either way our aspirations were set on becoming professional athletes, earning millions of dollars and doing it all on T.V. So you could imagine the confusion when I chose wrestling. Growing up in a predominantly African-American community
during the winter season, you played basketball. That was just the nature of the culture. Wrestling was taboo; a sport for misfits and it just wasn’t something that the cool kids did. Unless you were in the WWF, many people had never seen it and I admit it is pretty unglamorous. We worked hard but were hardly relevant and the only fans that attended our duals would be our parents and school faculty. We’d skip lunch and spit in empty bottles all day to make weight. We’d tuck our sweatpants and had funny looking ears. Sometimes we were even labeled gay because of our tight uniforms and the inti- mate positions with other men that wrestling requires. It was a tough lifestyle to be proud of. The weight of all this negativity made me question my passion for wrestling. There was a specific time when the load became too much and I actu- ally tried to quit the wrestling team in order to play basketball. I’d had enough of being an oddball and I longed to be a part of the in crowd. I was about 10 years old and all of my buddies from school
were on our town’s basketball team. Some of my closest class- mates were signed up for the league and each player received a cool jersey with their last name on the back. All that I’d ever gotten to wear in wrestling was a tight green singlet that belonged to someone else the year before. I came home from school one day and proclaimed, “That’s it! I’m quitting wrestling and playing basketball! I’ve done enough in this sport, and I want to try something new.” My mom and dad knew why I wanted to quit. They laughed,
and wouldn’t even entertain the idea of allowing me to withdraw from my best sport. They reminded me that if I quit now it would be easier to surrender on other commitments I would make throughout my life. I had been blessed with a tremendous gift to be great at something and it was my personal duty to take full advantage of it, no matter what the world thought of me. From that day forward, I never looked back and I fully embraced my
love for wrestling. Reflecting now, I’m grateful they
didn’t give me a choice in the mat- ter. Although we aren’t a main- stream sport, wrestling is identifi- able because it so closely mimics life: the struggles, adversity, sacri- fice and the tireless effort to stand out; everything that it means to be human. It has helped me build character
and develop into the man I’ve become. I have met my wife, gone to college for free, traveled the world and created lifelong relation- ships all because of pursuing my passion despite the odds. I ignored the pressure to pursue something else and what others thought of me, and stuck with my passion. My questions to you are: what will you transcend? Can you
Jordan Burroughs Olympic/World champion
beat the odds and ignore the pressure? I had to go against the grain, overlooking race and culture to
remain in our sport. Some of you may be experiencing other dif- ficulties. Maybe your parents don’t understand the sacrifices involved
and why you chose to wrestle. Maybe you’re the only person in your family who wrestles and no one can relate. Maybe you’re not any good, and everyone is asking why you keep going back. Maybe you’re a young lady and everyone questions why you would want to participate in something with so few women. Many people won’t understand it now, but they will grow to respect it. How long are you willing to stay the course and potentially unleash something within yourself that you have never known possible; something you won’t ever achieve if you quit now? To all of the young wrestlers throughout the world, regardless of race or sex, I want to let you know that wrestling is cool. You define cool. Create your own lane and don’t listen to the hate and criticism. When I return to my hometown now, I walk a little bit taller. I
wasn’t extremely popular in high school, but just this past year our district decided that the school’s gymnasium would be named after me. Not bad for a wrestler. Respect is earned, not given. And because I stayed focused and disciplined on my journey, I became successful. Never let doubt deter you from your dreams. To the rare few
who decided to stick with it, the ones who pursued their passion despite the odds and being labeled an outsider you make our sport great. We are uncommon. Take pride in it, and show the world that greatness isn’t always made on the big stages. You can do it too. Anything is possible.
(This column appeared in the July 8, 2016 edition of WIN Magazine. Annual subscriptions are available at www.WIN-mag-
azine.com. USA Wrestling members will start getting several pages of WIN content this fall in a blended bi-monthly edition of USA Wrestler called the USA Wrestler – WIN Magazine Edition. USAW members can upgrade their membership to also include the 50 to 90-page off-month editions of WIN for only $18 a year more for the six additional WIN issues.)
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