 High School Wrestling News- January 22,2010
Having the opportunity to contribute again to the lives of young people, I chose to do that. I am supposed to be retired, I wake up at 4:30 getting ready for morning workouts and wonder sometimes if I am. It doesn't matter, as I have said before and will say again, I believe I am doing what I was put on this earth to do.
I bring this article back up to encourage myself, the team, the coaches because nothing has changed. We have accomplished a lot. The kids have improved, everyone is working hard;but, it is not how you start but how you finish. We are going down the stretch right now and we have taken some injuries, trying to survive semester finals. Some kids that are beat down and make the finish as good as the start. It never changes, what you put in you get out. We will see in the next month if our investment has been enough. No matter, the young men will be better young men than when they started. They will develop into leaders in the community and in the workplace and hopefully they will keep this journey going. It is a valuable tool, this sport, it is a pure sport, what you invest and what you work for you will harvest at the end.
I am excited about this new school and this new program. I know it will turn out to be another source of contributing members of society. We lack that in our country at this time. Coach Bodnar
What does it take to get it done, I can't answer that completely because I haven't yet achieved what I believe I am supposed to do. Amazingly we find so many advisors when we get close to the prize. I have to smile as I get told by so many about what they have done to help us "get it done" I was thinking about the work that it has taken over the last couple of decades to put us in postion to move toward the excellence that I always talk about.
I have been hearing on a daily basis about what so many have supposedly done to get Justin to the State Championship, and I have to smile because I know what it took I have been there with him in the good times and the bad. I have been to camp with him , I have been on the mat coaching him and unless I am mistaken I have been in the room with him every day of his wrestling career at Pasco High School.
I look at the trail of success that this group of kids has achieved and it humbles me. I know their sacrifice, I know my own. How odd it is that so many like to grab a piece of the prize without the sacrifice. I think part of it is just ignorance of what it takes to develop anything to the point of excellence.
I know about the twenty hour days, I know about losing kids to academic problems and trying to figure ways to help kids go to camp that don't have the support to go and I know about being there and sleeping on the ground and giving up my time to give the kids an opportunity. It is laughable that people go home do their daily routine and enjoy themselves and don't know about the sacrifices , the skin problems, the weight problems , the motivational problems and then decide that they have a miraculous answer to what these kids need and that their comments or magical or mythical answers to set backs are what brings it all together. I do know what it takes as I think about it. I just may not have given enough yet, I can't imagine where but maybe there is more to sacrifice out there and I know that it takes persistence and I know it can be lonely and I know that it can be difficult. None of that scares me and none of that makes me shy away from the task , my goodness I have been designing this for the last thirty years.
You can't imagine what it took to do this, It would take me a book to explain it. There are not simple answers to reaching excellence and there is no easy way out. You are in for the long haul, day in and day out. If you are not you don't get there.
Posted by: Robert Bodnar, Jan 24, 09:04 |
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