From the sidelines
Regional wrestling tournaments are rarely fun.
Coaches are stressed out from about 6 a.m. on a Friday to 8 p.m. the next day — if they are lucky enough to have someone still in the bracket.
Parents sit nervously in the stands, tapping their feet as if they are in a doctor's waiting room.
The wrestlers try to act like they aren't nervous, listening to music or chatting with teammates. In reality, butterflies flutter so much in their stomach they worry if there is anything else inside.
It's not like football or basketball. All eyes are on them for six minutes — if they're lucky.
The only people who aren't nervous wrecks are the volunteer scorekeepers. Or the announcer who tells everyone who is not a coach, to please step away from the mat.
Try telling that to reporters or dozens of parents who want to capture their child's moment forever.
It doesn't go over to well.
Basically wrestling tournaments are weekend stress-fests.
But they have their good moments.
Like when Marion High School's Casey Nelson trailed almost the entire match at Saturday's regional against 2004 state-qualifier Kyle Powers of Pleasant Ridge, only to turn the tide and pin Powers with five seconds left.
Or Adam Depler, Marion's lone state-qualifier, as he stood on the third-place podium, knowing he still has unfinished business Saturday in Hays.
Freshmen Hank Collett and Charlie Holub, wrestling in their first regional, failed to qualify for state, but Holub twice and Collett once got to hear the whistle blow and the referee's hand slap the mat, knowing they were king of that match.
While there may have been less good moments and more stressful ones Saturday at Onaga for Marion, not one Warrior didn't give it his or her all.
No one bowed to the nervousness that comes with regional wrestling.
Now that Depler is moving on to try and capture a state title in the 189-lb. class, coaches Chad Adkins and Sean Spoonts get to do it all over again this weekend.
But they're ready. Depler is ready to dispose of his opponents on the mat. And Adkins and Spoonts are ready for him to do so.
Just probably not until they have finished off a pack of Rolaids.
