Hello Friends of Marist Wrestling,

Believe it or not, we are less than one month away from the first competition of the year! Mark your calendars for Saturday, November 24, as Marist wrestling will be hosting New Trier, Schaumburg, and OPRF at 10 a.m. in the main gymnasium. The quad will feature two of the best AAA teams in the state of Illinois in OPRF and Marist, so there will be plenty of great wrestling throughout the day. Afterward, we are tentatively planning a Marist Wrestling Thanksgiving celebration in the Cafetorium for wrestlers, families, and any friends of Marist Wrestling who are interested in attending. More information will be provided once we are certain on the details.

                Last weekend, the third annual Friends of Marist Wrestling golf outing took place at Gleneagles Golf Club. I’d personally like to thank both Lou DePasquale and Laura Ford who were integral in planning and running our best golf outing yet. The weather cooperated beautifully, everyone had a great time, and the program raised funds that will help our wrestlers continue to succeed both on and off the mat. Thanks to everyone who showed up for dinner, golfed, and donated. We appreciate all the help and as always, the good company. It is wonderful to continue Marist Wrestling’s tradition of have more fun than any other program in the state of Illinois!

                Speaking of Marist Wrestling’s legacy, alumni wrestlers should have received a letter in the mail regarding former RedHawk wrestler Ryan Blake’s ambitious documentary project. For those of you who are not aware, Ryan Blake plans to film the 2012-2013 Marist wrestling season in hopes of creating a documentary covering the program, Marist High School, and high school wrestling.  If you are interested in helping with the production in any way possible, please do not hesitate to contact me at heffernan.brendan@marist.net.

                The first official practice of the season is not until November 5, but we anticipate pre-season rankings to be released within a few weeks. While we all know rankings are basically meaningless, it always an opportunity for us to demonstrate the competitiveness of our schedule, which will again feature some of the toughest competition that the state of Illinois and the entire country has to offer. I will provide a week-by-week breakdown that includes all of our ranked opponents after rankings are released.

                Finally, our annual Red-White Scrimmage is scheduled for the evening of Sunday, November 18. Marist High School’s open house is from 12:00 p.m. to 3: 00 p.m. that day, and wrestling will begin around 5:00 p.m. Information on a post meet social will be provided once scheduling is finalized.

                I hope everyone is ready for the season, because I know our RedHawk wrestlers will be ready to provide some highlight performances over the next four months as we work toward Champaign. Please visit www.athletics2000.com/marist for a look at the 2012-2013 schedule. I look forward to seeing at one of our home meets, and as always, Go RedHawks!

September 29, 2012: Some comments on the nature of success in wrestling and in life.

Winston Churchill once said “solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.” Wrestling is a solitary sport. Not just an individual sport, but a solitary one. If you cannot stand to be alone, then it is my assertion, that it will be difficult for you to be a solid wrestler. I will also grant that you cannot become a great wrestler strictly on your own. You need great workout partners, coaches, parents, and teammates to provide for you, and of course, you need friends you are close with who can help you forget about wrestling for a while, because no man should have a one track mind focused solely on success in wrestling. That’s no way to enjoy life.

But success in life (as well as in wrestling) requires one to be comfortable with solitude. Deciding to eat right, workout enough, train hard, and live properly, those are all decisions made on your own, just as deciding to work as hard as you possibly can to become successful in your profession is a choice made on your own. You cannot rely on others for self-discipline, so you must have a great relationship with yourself. Think about it, that conversation going on in between your ears - is it a positive or a negative one? That voice you hear in your head, does it respect you? Does it admire you? Does it root for you? Does it encourage you? Does it even want to speak to you anymore? Because if it doesn’t you may want to begin thinking about why you can’t even get along with yourself. As Tennessee Williams said, “we’re all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.” It’s up to you whether or not that’s such a bad thing.

Solitude shouldn’t be uncomfortable for a wrestler. If it teaches anything at all, wrestling should teach you mental toughness and the basics of how to intrinsically motivate yourself. There’s a reason why writers like Steve Cooper, a contributor to Forbes Magazine write articles with titles like “Why Wrestler’s Make the Best Employees.” It’s because to be successful in wrestling, athletes must know how to discipline themselves, how to push themselves, and how to handle success and failure themselves. In life, as in wrestling, no one out there is willing to do those things for you, so you better start figuring out how to do it on your own.

I hope that my wrestlers are capable of independently functioning once they’ve moved on with the sport. I hope that wrestling has made them stronger students, stronger job candidates, and stronger men. It’s these hopes that disturb my solitude at times, but it’s also these worries that motivate me to be a teacher, to be a coach, and to try and be a better person. And I think wrestling has helped me be better at solitude, and be better at life.   

In the end, it’s my hope that by the time I finish my coaching career, I will have created some strong, solitary trees, some people who are comfortable with who they are, with the effort they made and continue to make in life, and with the men they’ve become.

On Why I am at Marist All the Time

I am at Marist High School all the time. All…the… time. Parents, students, and wrestlers jokingly tell me they are concerned for me any time they drive by the parking lot and don’t see my car there. But the reason I am at school all the time is simple: I love my job. I want my students to learn the value of proper grammar, be confident in their writing skills, and to appreciate the craftsmanship of a good novel or short story. I want my wrestlers to succeed… in life and on the mat. I want them to get into the school of their choice, land their dream job, and maybe someday comeback and help this school out by replacing me when I stink at my job. Simply put, I can spend all the time I do at Marist High School because I am passionate about it. And that is what I want to talk about this week - passion.

No matter how much I am at Marist, I am rarely the only person there. I am not referring to the other dedicated coaches and teachers in the building who spend countless hours there though; I’m talking about the athletes. Whether it’s an early Saturday morning, or a late Wednesday evening, somebody, somewhere is practicing. That’s that way it goes with high school athletics today though. Athletes today are expected to do so much more than when I was in high school. At times, I think to myself about how much I would have loved the opportunity to put all these hours in instead of finding time and places to get extra workouts in on my own. But sometimes I think to myself – would I have loved it? Would I have been as passionate about my workouts, my training, and my dedication if someone else was forcing me to workout at all hours of the day, train every weekend, and focus on my goals?

This is where coaching young athletes becomes tricky nowadays. If you hope to be competitive, you have to out-train the best. Wrestling, more than any other sport, rewards hard work. The hardest working wrestler may not always win, but he will certainly succeed more than he fails, and the hardest working wrestlers on the hardest working wrestling teams today are working hard year round. The term offseason used to refer to time off. Now, it refers to the opportunity to change your training, to get a different type of practice in – a less intense, less structured (at least in our case) practice. Athletes today (at least the dedicated ones) don’t know any better though. They don’t question why they have to work all year round, and don’t complain about losing time with friends or at home.

All of that is great, as long as passion is still involved. I can’t stress how concerned I am that some of these young athletes are going to completely turn their backs on sport once they’ve moved on with their lives due to burn out or desire to do other things. At Marist, we try to keep things fun for our wrestlers, and I think that is evident year in and year out when they feel good about themselves and produce at the end of the season. I honestly don’t know how they’d survive without having fun. I’m getting paid to be here all the time – they’re not. I can remember the last year I wrestled in college (it wasn’t my last year of eligibility), I knew it was time to stop when I absolutely dreaded practice every day. I didn’t want to feel any more pain, frustration, or disappointment, and that is all I could think about when I woke up every morning to go to the training room for therapy on my knee, when I left class to head to the practice room, and when I returned to the training room after practice for more therapy and ice wraps. There is absolutely no worse feeling in life than detesting something you once cared about more than anything, and that is my worst nightmare for any athletes I coach. I dread the day I can look into one of my wrestler’s eyes and see apathy. It’s a slippery slope, because as coaches we preach dedication, determination, and sacrifice while simultaneously attempting to help them enjoy their high school experience to the fullest. But it’s also something I think the staff at Marist (I’m speaking of much more than just wrestling people here) does a wonderful job of handling. That’s what makes Marist such a special place to be in my mind. Adults everywhere are committed to helping students get the most out of their four years here.

Coaches – whether they are in or out of season – can sometimes overlook that, but it is evident in the amount of time and work Marist athletes put in and evident in the amount of graduates who have moved on with their lives that return on weeknights and weekends to support their former coaches and teammates, and it is evident in the eyes and the voices of the parents as they cheer on their children or congratulate them.

So I guess I just wanted to explain why I am always here through this blog post. It’s not because I’m a poor planner or a slow grader or a meticulous coach. It’s because I want to be. And what can Marist wrestlers take from this post? Just the knowledge (if they are not already aware of it) that they are at a special place, and a reminder to make the most out of their experience here as well as the rest of their lives. Find something you are passionate about, and work hard until you can make a career out of your passion. Take advantage of your high school experience by, finding the things in life you are passionate about, getting the grades for the career you want, and figuring out how to remain passionate about life for the rest of your life.

What I would like to write about today is an often misunderstood concept: the difference between arrogance and inner-arrogance. There is absolutely nothing worse as either a coach or a fan than an athlete who comes off as arrogant; yet arrogance – or at least inner-arrogance – is a key element in the mentality of an elite athlete. Much more than simply believing in your abilities, inner-arrogance allows athletes the ability to truly believe they are the absolute best at what they do. The tricky part comes with earning inner-arrogance. It’s one thing to believe you are the best in the world, but it is a completely separate animal to boast that you are the best in the world. Recent Olympic Gold Medalist Jordan Burroughs is the perfect example of inner-arrogance.  His twitter handle, @alliseeisgold, can certainly be looked at as an arrogant gesture. Burroughs, however, does not conduct himself in an arrogant manner. From everything I have seen and heard of him, he is humble, respectful, and classy. So why create a twitter account with the title alliseeasgold? Simple. He believes in himself. But more than that, Burroughs challenged himself, knowing full well how silly he would look if he walked away from London without Olympic Gold. In order to push hard enough to earn something as coveted as Olympic Gold athletes must tell themselves 100 times a day how good they are – not to boost their egos, but to remind themselves why they are working so hard. What Burroughs did was brilliant. He saw twitter as an opportunity to let his followers motivate him on a daily basis. Fans of his constantly sent tweets with well wishes or words of encouragement, and someone who works as hard as Olympic wrestlers do needs every ounce of encouragement available.

After winning his Olympic gold, Burroughs was asked by several media outlets about his bold statement that he would win. In just about every interview, his response was the same: "It's easy to be confident when you put the hard work in that I do," Burroughs said (click here for a video of his post-gold press conferene: http://www.flowrestling.org/video/652882-Jordan-Burroughs-Gold-Medal-Press-Conference). And that’s the difference between someone who is arrogant and an athlete who uses inner-arrogance to fuel their dreams. Arrogant people go around telling others that they are capable of winning a gold medal. Athletes with inner arrogance spend their time training for Olympic gold. The only person who knows how hard Burroughs worked, the amount of hours he put in, and the adversity he had to overcome to get to where he is now, is Jordan Burroughs himself. And that’s where inner-arrogance comes from – the knowledge of and the memory of all the hard work, commitment, and dedication that you have put in. That’s what builds the confidence, and that is the only way to truly believe in yourself – by putting in the work. The best aspect of the sport of wrestling is that there are absolutely zero shortcuts. There is no way around putting in the hard work that it takes to become the best. If you don’t do it, someone else will outwork you and they will beat you, plain and simple.

As I said earlier, there is nothing worse as a coach than seeing undeserved arrogance from athletes, and arrogant wrestlers are easy to spot. They are the ones who begrudgingly put in the same amount of work the rest of the team does, who question why practices are so hard, and who believe that they can get away with putting in the bare minimum effort. When it comes to competition, these are the very same wrestlers who come up with every excuse in the book before, during, and after their matches to explain their lack of success. Notice that I mention before the match, because confidence cannot come from undeserved arrogance. In fact, that is what arrogance is: confidence without commitment. Wrestlers who have cut corners are the ones who experience fear or anxiety before matches. Confident wrestles, on the other hand, have inner-arrogance, and inner-arrogance can only come from total commitment.  

So what should young wrestlers take from this rant? It’s simple. The season is quickly approaching, and all of you should be sitting down to write out or think about your goals for 2013. Do not be afraid to sound arrogant or cocky through your goals. Just ensure that you do everything you can to boost that confidence. Remember that every single day and every single workout is an opportunity to work so hard that your mind will never question what you are capable of accomplishing.  Push yourself to the point that you believe you can beat anyone, and remember that whether you work that hard or not, someone else out there in your weight class is working that hard. Which one would you bet on when a match comes down the final seconds?

Hello everybody. One quick reminder before this week’s article begins. Greco-Roman wrestling kicks-off tomorrow, Sunday, August 5. Be sure to follow and support USA wrestling!

Let’s talk a little about fear and regret, two emotions that coaches want athletes to avoid. In reality though, both can be used to produce great results. Fear of failure can be a great motivator, however most young athletes allow fear of failure to motivate them in a different way. Because there are no guarantees that all the hard work, sacrifice, and commitment will eventually pay off, there will always be the fear that if goals are not achieved, others will mock you for all the hard work that you put in for naught. And it is this fear, - the fear of being made fun of, laughed at, or even ostracized that dooms most young athletes who end up using excuses like “Well I never really worked that hard at it anyway,” or “It was never really that important to me in the first place,” when they come up short of their goals. But all too soon regret sets in, and those lines quickly turn into “Well, I could have if I just worked as hard as so-and-so, or if I really cared about it, I would have done this.” Instead of being afraid of what people will think of them if they fail, athletes should focus on the fear of living the rest of their lives with the question “What if?” lingering in the back of their mind. Take it from me, that is a scary, scary future.

You see, the thing about regret in athletics is that you regret what DIDN’T do, not what you did. Never in my life have I heard an all-state or all-American wrestler utter the phrase “I really wish I hadn’t put it in all that time, work, and effort.” I have however, heard (and even said myself) the line: “I wish I had been more disciplined and dedicated. I think I could’ve … (insert goal here).”  And this is what most young athletes fail to realize. Ten, 15, 20 years from now, you’re not going to regret skipping that party, being disciplined with your diet, waking up early for workouts, and committing yourself to a long-term goal. You have your entire life to eat as much junk food as you want, enjoy time with your friends, and relax, but your time to become a state champion, all-American, honor-roll student, and get into the college of your dreams is finite – it is disappearing as you read this.

Watching Olympic swimming this past week, I saw an interview on NBC with Australian swimmer James Magnussen, who had had been telling Australian media for months that he was going to win Olympic Gold and set a World Record at the London Games. A reporter asked Magnussen if he regretted making those statements because of the pressure that was being placed on him.

His response?

 “Not at all. If I don’t do it, the only thing I’ll regret is not swimming my best.” 

Magnussen won’t regret all the time and work he put it in if he doesn’t reach his goal. He may be disappointed with the result, but at least he’ll be able to walk away with the satisfaction of knowing that he gave it his best shot.

So when you are preparing your goals, deciding whether or not to get that extra workout in, or attempting to push yourself during a difficult practice, ask yourself this question: which are you going to end up regretting, the work you put in, or the work you didn’t put in?  

Coach Heff

Here we go . . .

Throughout this year, I am going to use this site to discuss issues and ideas I would like to speak with the Marist wrestling team or the wrestling community about. Every now and again, I'll try to post videos, articles, or pictures that have to do with whatever is being discussed. Right now, I'd like to let some successful coaches do the speaking for me. These videos are a good start to discussing some of the topics I think our wrestlers need to begin focusing on as the season begins in a few weeks. Look at these, feel free to comment, and Go RedHawks!

XIV

http://www.flowrestling.org/speaker/158-J-Robinson/video/1052-Habits

http://www.flowrestling.org/coverage/238664-Flo-Flashbacks/video/5556-John-Smith-After-Practice

http://www.flowrestling.org/speaker/158-J-Robinson/video/1051-Belief-System

Test post

Trying this thing out. Let me know what you think.