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Should I Wrestle In College?

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Should I wrestle in college?
Credit: Juan Garcia https://www.flickr.com/photos/128365370@N07/

"For people who don’t play or like sports, sports metaphors are frustrating, obnoxious or cliche. Of course, they think this at their loss. Even the ancient philosophers from Seneca to Epictetus to Socrates loved to reference sports. Wrestling, gymnastics, boxing, running—you can’t crack an ancient text and not find them connecting philosophy to metaphors about sparring, about competing in the Olympics, and training and winning and losing. They do this because sports then, as now, were a part of life. Also because they embody the best and the worst of life—our competitive urges, teamwork, grace under pressure, realizing our potential, the agony of defeat. It’s why I love books written by great coaches—they have so much to teach us, not only about the game but about life itself."

Ryan Holiday
You might love wrestling. You might be thinking about trying it out at the next level, and when you do, questions flood your mind. “How hard is college wrestling? Am I good enough? How hard is it to get a wrestling scholarship? What weight should I wrestle in college? ….Are you sure? What if I really, really, really like pizza? Okay, so I wanna wrestle in college. I love wrestling, but what’s in it for me? Do I get something out of this when I’m done?”
Those are all valid questions, especially the one about pizza. After all, pizza is life. Maybe it’s not all about wrestling and cutting weight. How much scholarship money will I be getting to make this worth it? What if I want to do another sport like football or power lifting? Can I focus on my classes while wrestling at the same time? (Spoiler: Yes, and I’ll give you a few examples later in this post.)

Should I Wrestle In College?

Truthfully, it depends.
It depends on what kind of college life you’re looking for. How much do you love wrestling? More importantly, how much will you love wrestling in times of adversity? Based on this, you may need to make wrestling your life while everything else takes a back seat for several years, you may join a club that occasionally competes in tournaments, or do something in between. In other cases, you may feel burnt out and severely injured from high school wrestling that the thought of stepping on another wrestling mat makes you sweat bullets, and that’s a fair point too. Based on how much you’d like to commit, you have several different options to choose from.
If you hate wrestling, you probably won’t wrestle to your potential. However, if you find that you don’t want to wrestle because you want to “take it easy” in college, here’s a word of warning for you: you may end up feeling unfulfilled and lacking in purpose. In Man’s Search For Meaning, Victor Frankl nails this feeling on the head when he says, “What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.” Lacking a source of meaning in your life can lead to depression and questionable life decisions. From one self respecting human being to another, I suggest you find something else to do that’ll satisfy you even if that thing is not wrestling. Just because you don’t wrestle NCAA Division I doesn’t make you a person. It also doesn’t necessarily make you a bad wrestler. As a former DIII wrestler myself, I’ve beaten DI wrestlers before. That brings us to the next consideration.

Am I Good Enough To Wrestle In College?

I once talked to a prospective recruit who decided to visit campus during an open house over the summer. The coach wasn’t there, so he quietly asked me, “Do you think I’m good enough to wrestle in college?” Four years after that, I saw that he had won the Conference Championship. This obviously takes a lot of work, but the point is that you probably need to jump the mental hurdle. It’s very possible for a freshman to join the program and win matches right away.
I’ve also seen way too many forfeits in college wrestling dual meets to tell you that you’re not good enough to wrestle in college. A college coach will take a wrestler over an empty weight class any day. Of course, there’s more to college wrestling than filling empty weight classes, so let’s go through some of the other stuff that comes along with the question of being good enough.

How Hard Is It To Get A Wrestling Scholarship?

The short answer: Pretty damn hard. The extensive answer, though, is that you have many more options available that come along with your financial aid package- need based financial aid, merit based financial aid, federal grants, and external scholarships to name a few. According to the NCAA, where athletic scholarships aren’t given on the DIII level, 80% of all student athletes receive some form of academic grant or need-based scholarship; averaging a total of $17,000 in institutional gift aid.
Being a wrestler also helps you get into college, especially if the coach wants you there. Long story short, you may not get a full wrestling scholarship, but you’ll have plenty of other options to consider.
In light of transparency, after my coach did some negotiation on my behalf, I received a total of $45,800 in financial aid ($40,000 college grant, $4,000 in merit, and $1,800 for work study on campus) for my first year back when tuition cost $52,000. Basically, this took my tuition costs down from $52,000 to $6,200, and my tuition cost ended up being around $6,200 per year for the remainder of my time at my college with a few decreases over the years. Even though I seriously considered it at the start, I never had to take out a student loan so I graduated debt-free, too. Pretty sweet, right? I’m very grateful.

Can I Join A Wrestling Team Without Being Recruited?

In most cases, you can absolutely walk onto a team. Just ask the wrestling coach. My high school mentor and wrestling coach walked onto the Harvard wrestling team. Three years later, he was voted the team captain. Remember 2011 NCAA Champion Anthony Robles? He also walked onto Arizona State. However, reaching this level and staying at this level is a huge time commitment, which we’ll talk about next.

Is It Worth The Time Commitment?

For this section, we’re gonna approach this as a cost-benefit analysis. If the benefit exceeds the cost, then it’s worth it. If the cost exceeds the benefit, then you’re better off saying no. Your economics professor can thank me later.

Which College Lifestyle Is For You?

College wrestling certainly isn’t for everyone. At times, you’ll miss out on having what most would consider a regular college social life and you’ll end up drinking less too. Naturally, you’ll also have less time to spend on academics and professional opportunities compared to a non-athlete, so you’ll need to be very smart with your time. Depending on what level of commitment you want while wrestling in college, you’ll also have options from multiple different divisions to consider in order to find the right fit for you.

What Kind Of Person Wrestles In College And Does Well?

It seems difficult, but it’s certainly possible. Check out these three examples of highly successful NCAA wrestlers who balanced wrestling and academics extremely well.

Nick Amuchastegui, Stanford

Matt Brown, Penn State

J.P. O'Connor, Harvard

Click on each image or name to learn more about each of these great role models. Plenty of student athletes also make it work on the DIII level, but as you can imagine, competing in college wrestling doesn’t come at a small cost in terms of your time. This is where you figure out whether the benefits are worth it.

What are the benefits?

Are the sacrifices worth it, then? Before you make your decision, you also need to consider all the benefits that come along with wrestling. It’s no secret that wrestling in college comes with sacrifices (in fact, some people will glorify the sacrifices because it makes them seem tough). Aside from getting the opportunity to do something you love for four more years while building some of the closest relationships in your life, college wrestling comes with a few other perks.

Mental and Physical Conditioning

Sports psychologists now say that nothing works in isolation. Mind and body are not separate. If you want to focus on school, make sure that it’s not a time management issue. Exercise will only keep your brain functioning at an optimal state. In fact, athletes find that they do better in school during the competitive season because they tend to find themselves in a focused state.
Obviously, college wrestling will put you in the best shape of your life. You’ll look like you’re carved out of granite. Believe me, college is a great time to look jacked along with some of your closest friends (unless your best friend wrestles heavyweight and is not named Kyle Snyder. In that case, I apologize).

Professional Opportunities

According to Forbes magazine, wrestlers make the best employees. Personally, I secured a job in New York City that paid $58,000 for the first year before I was even a senior in college. That had a lot to do with the connections I made in wrestling and framing my interview stories around my leadership opportunities in wrestling. Not to be outdone, other DIII athletes from other sports at my college had similar opportunities lined up for them.
Discipline, work ethic, and the ability to handle adversity or uncertainty are not as common outside of the wrestling community. You’ll notice this right away in the working world. When things get difficult later in your professional career and people are panicking, you’ll be walking around with a confident smile while thinking to yourself, “I can do this. It’s not nearly as hard as wrestling.” That’s a powerful quality to have that no one can ever take away from you.

So...Should I Wrestle In College?

Figure out what kind of college life you’re looking to have. Then, do the cost-benefit analysis for yourself to see if wrestling in college is worth it for you. If the benefits of college wrestling outweigh the sacrifices you’ll make, then the answer is yes.
Personally, it was one of the best decisions that I (Che Chengsupanimit, Co-Founder of CWR) ever made in my education and in my life. I learned a lot through my pursuit of excellence in sport. It made me better at business, at handling stressful situations, at tackling tough problems, and at finding motivation.

Committing to wrestling comes with a promise to improve yourself. While I can't promise you the world at your fingertips at the end of your wrestling career, I can certainly promise that you will have most of the tools you need to get there.

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