It was this time last year that I attended my first ever amateur wrestling event. I visited George Mason University to watch their Green vs Gold wrestle offs. I was a total newbie who knew nothing about the sport. I followed GMU during the season and saw them wrestle a couple of times, and saw a few other matches and events. Coach Frank Beasley is really doing great things at GMU. It’s no wonder their tagline is #BeUncommon! He hosted a huge breakfast in mid October for his wrestlers at their team retreat, a great team building event, and it was great to see everyone pitching in. And it seems to be paying off. Heavyweight Matt Voss checked in at number 11 in The Open Mat’s preseason ranking. And in the recent Eastern Wrestling League coach’s poll, GMU is picked to finish fourth this year, up from their seventh place finish in Beasley’s first year. I can already tell it’s going to be an exciting year for the green and gold!

As much as I thought I learned about amateur wrestling during the last 12 months, I found out I still have a LOT more to learn! For example:

• I do know what back points are for.
• I don’t know how to spot an illegal hold, which did happen at the meet.
• I do have a better feeling for why wrestlers might choose the up, down, or neutral position to start a period.
• I still can’t tell the difference between a whizzer and cheese whiz! I looked up whizzers on YouTube this evening. I saw whizzers, ankle whizzer counter, shin whizzer, a cartwheel from a whizzer, and a crazy shin whizzer tilt. And those were just the first two pages!
• I do know that when shooting wrestling matches in low light that an f/4 lens is no substitute for a wide open f/2.8.

That said, I am really looking forward to following GMU this season, and hopefully learning a lot from Coach Beasley and his great men that he’s building.

This past weekend, GMU held their 2018 Green and Gold meet again. The action did not disappoing! I did snap a bunch of photos. Hopefully they were able to capture the great action I saw last Saturday. Hopefully with more matches to come this season, I can get some more great photos!

And at the end of the day, these great athletes still showed great sportsmanship. Because isn’t that what we all want in sports?!? That, and to #BeUncommon!