Olympic Team Trials 2012 - THANK YOU

First and foremost, I sent all my congratulations out to those who won the 2012 Olympic Wrestling Team Trials this past weekend in Iowa City, IA. I will do whatever I can to help you as you represent out country with honor. I feel like we have a very strong team and are ready to shock the world and win the Olympics as a country. I next want to thank all of the businesses and family and friends that supported me financially and in spirit as I trained and competed in my attempt to make the Olympic Team.

I clearly fell short if you hadn't heard yet. I had a very disappointing tournament, but I was one of only ten wrestlers at my weight class that were given the opportunity to even try and make the Olympic team. I am not done with my career yet. I am young in this sport and ready to go back to the drawing board, fix some things, physically, technically, and mentally as I start my training for Rio in 2016. I am discouraged that I didn't compete to my best ability but I feel the ability and potential is there. I just have to take and do work and get there. 

I saw many things this weekend from my teammates and other wrestlers around the country that experienced the tournament as I did, with disappointment. Disappointment does not have to lead to depression, or despair, or regret, or retirement. I can lead to dedication, commitment, desire, and can make a person stronger in the long run. I believe this is what will come of my disappointment in Iowa City. I know in my heart I am better than what the fans saw this weekend. I know I have the ability and the determination to be the best in the world, it just won't be in 2012. 

I only ask my friends and family to continue to believe in me as you have this past couple years. I will always appreciate your support in all ways. Thank you again and GO TEAM USA!

Communicating with Foreigners!

I found myself thinking today, after a session of basketball with some South American teams, about how arrogant we are when we attempt to communicate with people in their native tongue. We speak in broken phrases and incorrect vernacular that we believe they should understand. If you think about it, in fact we are showing them just how unintelligent we really are. Yes, I know we are just giving it our best attempt at conversing but just imagine if we talked to each other with this broken grammar. It is an elementary english teacher's worst nightmare. I didn't realize how ridiculous I sounded until I began asking my friend if we could listen to music on his phone and the only words I could get out were, "Phone…uh…music….mmmm…listen….in sauna." It was as if I had lost my cognitive ability to put thoughts together into a sentence. He simply laughed and reminded me that he spoke the same language as me and I didn't have to break it down for him. It dawned on me that this is essentially how stupid we sound when we attempt to mix English and Spanish together incoherently into a phrase to get our message unsuccessfully across to someone who can't speak English. I have a very select vocabulary in Spanish from my 3 years of Spanish that ended when I was 16. This allows me more to understand than actually communicate this week with our friends from the south, but when they need to know what is happening I merely resort back to my caveman like phrasing of their language. I believe this will be the beginning of my very sincere attempt to learn a new language. As of now I think I'll probably try to start increasing my knowledge of the Spanish language since that is what I am presented with most frequently here in the United States but Russian is a language I really want to master because of our frequent trips to Russian speaking countries through wrestling. This revelation I have had today makes me really appreciate foreigners that can speak English so much more. I will never laugh at anyone ever again for their struggles to communicate with me because I'm sure my attempts to communicate in their language are just as bad!