Looking back on my junior wrestling season, I wasn’t one who had to worry about my weight too much. I wrestled 138 and was usually sitting at a safe 140-141. My cutting routine consisted of pretty much eating light the day of a match and getting a good sweat going before weigh ins. If there was a weight allowance, I would barely have to be conscious of it. Therefore, I easily made weight every competition up until the Regional tournament.

The weekend of Regionals was the first time I have ever had to genuinely worry about my weight. I was roughly five pounds over when we set out on the 3-hour drive to Buckley, Wa. There were 5 of us in total who qualified and all of us were worried about our weight for the next day. We had just eaten our linner at around 2 pm and none of us were planning on eating again until weigh ins, we were ready to suffer through the next half day together.

We eventually pulled into the hotel parking lot and begin to unpack the usual team accessories one by one. The two coolers, the food bin, and all our own personal bags. The van became empty and we simultaneously realized that the most important thing was missing. “Where the **** is the scale?” somebody said aloud. Nobody responded with confidence. The inside of the van was bare as could be and the reality of the situation washed over us. The stunned silence was replaced by an uproar of accusations and anger from everybody around. “You were supposed to grab the scale!” “No, I wasn’t he was!” “Not me!” “What are we gonna do?” The anger and frustration coming from our two coaches simply added to the stress of the situation before they acknowledged that it was too late to go back and we didn’t know any teams that would allow us to borrow their scale. “Go to your rooms and put workout gear on.” We simply did as we were told and each dressed in a different combination of sweats and sweatshirts.

10 minutes later our two coaches’ pounded on the door, we opened it up and followed them down to the lobby. We were brought to the entrance of a square room, with 4 shabby looking exercise machines, a few dumbbells, and practically no empty space with five people inside. “We’re coming back in 45 minutes; everybody has to work out until we get back. Even though you guys forgot the scale, we still expect you to make weight tomorrow.” They closed the door and the five of us were left with those two sentences as instruction.

After the initial disappointment at the reality of the situation subsided, we gathered our thoughts and got to work. Our solution was a straight five station cardio circuit. Burpees, jump rope, jump squats, jumping jacks, and shadow wrestling were the stations, with 30 seconds at each one. The doors were closed and within minutes it felt like a sauna; sweat began to weigh my clothes down and steam covered the windows and mirror. The remaining 40 minutes became the hardest cutting workout of my high school wrestling career, but it wasn’t the worst. My teammates were there with me.

Somebody was playing music, words of encouragement were flying, the atmosphere was resoundingly positive. Despite the negative situation, my team pulled through and made the best of it. We blindly rotated and moved for 45 minutes, encouraging each other and staying focused. The sauna we were creating was scorching, yet whenever somebody felt like they couldn’t go on, we would let them know they had more in them. The yelling and singing carried us through until the end. We kept this up for 45 minutes and before we knew it, the door opened, and our coaches relieved us. Each of us were drenched in sweat, and proudly chatted as we walked back to our rooms. The cut was over and, in the end, only one of our alternates missed weight.

Overall, this is one of my favorite wrestling memories. Our team was faced with an obstacle and we unanimously decided we were going to tough it out and make the best of it. In all sports, not just wrestling, our teammates are what make everything worth it. There’s something special about putting in the hours together and having each other’s back. Don’t take your team for granted, and most importantly DON’T FORGET THE SCALE!