Spectating

I have been attending several home athletic events this winter, at first due to being threatened (jokingly) with bodily harm by my students in those events should I fail to attend, and thereafter just because it's fun to see them involved in something they enjoy doing--besides being in my classes, that is! The home wrestling meets are usually held at the middle school, but last week Thursday, it was in the high school gym. I decided that was the perfect opportunity to take my wife and daughters to their first wrestling match.

I explained to the girls a little bit ahead of time just what wrestling is. Hillary told me that she had watched wrestling on TV with her uncle Nick a couple weeks ago. I can only assume that it was professional wrestling, which is, of course, not the same as high school wrestling. We found a seat in the bleachers and watched the wrestlers warm up. The girls had a lot of questions about the set-up of the gym with the mats, the chairs for the wrestlers, the location of the cheerleaders, etc. They were also curious about the wrestlers' head guards, warm-up sweat suits, and singlets.

When the first match began, Abigail was seated beside me, smiling and happily awaiting the start of the match. As soon as it began and the two boys began to attack one another, she began to draw back aghast, her face registering her dismay at the harm those two were apparently inflicting upon one another without interference by the referee or any other adult in attendance, for that matter. It took a few matches before she was convinced that wrestlers know how to keep from hurting one another or getting hurt, and that they are indeed okay following the end of a match.

Suzanna seemed okay with the whole process the entire time, and Hillary seemed slightly unhinged by it the entire time, periodically turning to face me, either to bury her face into my shoulder or simply to sit looking at me, in both cases to avoid having to watch the brutality out on the mat. Abigail, however, who had started the evening with shock and disgust, soon appeared to enjoy the matches and even cheered occasionally when a pin appeared imminent. By the last few matches, however, she had checked out. She buried her face in my lap at one point, looking up only long enough to say, "Dad, wake me up if something fantastic happens" before lying down again.

I don't know enough about wrestling to have been able to explain everything about the scoring or the referee's calls, but I was able to tell Susan and the girls some things that enlightened them as they watched. I don't know that they will add wrestling to their list of favored spectator sports (they much prefer to attend basketball games), but at least they have experienced it now and know what it is.

P.S. Abigail thought it was pretty gross to observe one boy's nose buried in the other's crotch during a particular wrestling maneuver. I'm hoping that will dissuade her from ever generating an interest in being a wrestler herself--because she did, in fact, ask me whether girls are allowed to wrestle.