February 10, 2007

Big Wheel Keep on Turning

Here are some pictures of Elroy's wrestling team and of Elroy doing battle on the mat. To set the stage, at the beginning of each wrestling match the team limbers up by running a few circular paths around the mat, followed by a few token calisthentics and then they all dive to the center of the mat where they huddle up to....well, I'm not sure exactly what they do there, but it has that aura of galvanizing team spirit and machismo (except for the girl laying on the pile). Anyway, no other team they've wrestled does this particular pre-game demonstration, so I suppose it's the coaches' "secret weapon" to fire-up the team psyche to do battle and crush their opponent. But, in fact, in many of the meets this year the warm-up routine has been the singular highlight of the meet for Elroy's team. All kidding aside, the team and Elroy, did well against a handful of teams, but when matched against schools with a tradition of fielding competitive sports teams and having knowledgable, aggressvie coaching staffs the results were overwhelmingly one-sided. This has been going on for some years now and there doesn't seem to be much parent or school support for the team. The sad state of Elroy's wrestling team is reflected in the paltry parent turn-out for home meets, where usually there are more visiting team parents and friends in the stands. However, Elroy's wrestling coach, we'll call him Wheels, generally appears clueless to what is going on around him. While the opposing teams coaches are shouting instructions to their wrestlers, what moves to do or to get more active, Elroy's coach usually sits in his chair and has one verbal command......"Get up" and this usually comes just as the kid is about to be pinned. Get up, Geeett up, Gggggeeeeetttt uuuuppppp! It has gotten to the point of being comical, like Larry the Cableguy's signature...."Git-R-Done." Maybe I'm being unfair, after all Wheels is pretty old and maybe that was the most important wrestling move back when he was young....to just get up and he's teaching the kids all he knows. The best wrestler on Elroy's team this year had his own personal wrestling coach and fitness trainer. Elroy had Wheels.
It's just frustrating, but I think it's one of those coming-of-age situations every teenager has....the awful coach experience. Gosh, my football coach in high school was bad, bad, bad. It's normal for a coach, especially a football coach, to be intimidating but my high school football coach's principle teaching tool was humiliation. But that was years ago and I've gotten over that trauma, gotten over that trauma, gotten over that trauma, gotten over that trauma.......whoops sorry. Anyway, this reminded me of the Seinfeld episode in which Jerry's and George's high school phys-ed teacher, Mr. Heyman, purposely mispronounced George's name: instead of calling him Costanza, he called him Can't-Stand-Ya and gave George an atomic wedgie. Mr Heyman got fired for giving George an atomic wedgie, but the coaches like Wheels and my high school football coach, keep coaching even though they really aren't competent to adequately teach and prepare the kids on their teams to compete. Big Wheel keep on rolling. I hope you like the wrestling pictures of Elroy, we're very proud of him.



2 comments:

Michael P. Rellahan said...

Hope Mr. W. doesn't get wind of this post, or he'lkl be giving you the weggie.

Congrats to Elroy anway. I'm proud of him.

Jetson said...

George was upset.