Dedicating your time to something else besides the usual partying and Netflix binge-watching is a great feeling. Investing a part of yourself and a part of your precious time into a sporting activity is as satisfying as it is demanding. Starting wrestling from high school helps you make friends, learn about struggle and helps you discover that if you invest in something, that something will give back to you. As beautiful as it sounds (and it is, don’t get me wrong), High school wrestling is over. You are about to find out how college wrestling and the wrestling lifestyle becomes once it can bring you a scholarship. And today this is what I’m going to tell you about.

GETTING THERE

If you loved wrestling in high school and you want to go to a sports program in college, the first thing you have to do is finding colleges with wrestling scholarships. There are many out there, but not all of them are that good. Be careful because you can be the best wrestler in your college’s team but not be able to get a scholarship if the college’s team is a weak one and no one wants to invest there. Pay attention to the wrestling scholarships they offer. Most colleges don’t offer full scholarships for students doing wrestling so the scholarship will be a partial one. As a high school student, the best thing you can do for your image in the eyes of recruiters is to go to tournaments and championships. This is also not that easy. Very few recruiters will go to smaller championships in smaller cities. The problem with bigger tournaments is that they are more expensive than smaller ones. In a bigger competition, your emotions will go crazier than in a local one where your mom and friends came to support you. So in any championship, you should be careful, do your best and be careful with your health.

You also have to keep an eye on the other kids you’re having good fights with. They are your direct competition. They are there for the same reason you are and will do their best to land YOUR scholarship. The second school taxes sky-rocketed, the college wrestling recruiting became much intense. For your training, the best choice would be wrestling camps. You can save a lot of money and time for your training if you go to one of those and spend a full week wrestling!

WHEN YOU’RE THERE

You got into college and you got that kick-ass scholarship you wanted. Good for you! Now we’ll have to fight (see what I just did there?!) to keep you up and running! Once you start going to classes and practice you’ll soon start to realize how valuable your time actually is. For you to be able to keep up your performance in sports and to keep up the grades you’ll need a very carefully prepared schedule. You’ll have to survive between the classes everyone is taking and  to at least 3-4 hours a day of wrestling practice. The mindset you have to start with is that your main focus while you’re there is wrestling. For your performance you’ll have to eat wrestling and to sleep wrestling. Try keeping your classes before practice. Trust me when I say it, after 4 hours of wrestling practice, you don’t want to spend 2 hours listening to a biology course.

The studying should also not be neglected. You went to college for the wrestling program but the actual studying is what’s keeping you there. It’s important to realize what your priority is but also not to neglect your second most important activity. It’s ok not to have straight A’s but you have to put in the occasional study session. If you want to buy a research paper for college project because you ran out of time is acceptable if you were at practice, not at a party. Another thing to keep in mind is that you should pay attention to what you post on social media. Coaches and scholarship supervisors have a habit of checking the social media accounts of their students. They are looking for kids with good character and good habits for scholarships. Don’t embarrass yourself online because you never know who’s going to watch that.

CONCLUSION

Wrestling is not easy. College is not easy. So if you choose to go for a wrestling scholarship you’ll have to show maturity. From the discipline of training in high school to become good enough for a recruiter to notice you to the hype of competitions, you’ll have to know exactly what you’re doing. Getting there is not the hardest part. Keeping that scholarship for all the years you attend college is. Organize your practice and your study sessions, don’t be irresponsible with partying and respect your coaches and your colleagues who are there for the same reasons as you are. This should get you started!

BIO: Jeremy Raynolds is as passionate about sports as he is about traveling. Combining the digital nomad lifestyle with his life-long passion for sports he writes on-point articles about the sporting life. Traveling from the Olympiads to regional table tennis championships he keeps his content as active as his lifestyle.

Pictures from : https://pixabay.com