After wrestling with midterms the last few weeks, I decided I needed a break to watch the actual sport. Fortunately, November 6 was the first home Wrestling event of the season against Bellarmine. Though I suppose I bought tickets because of nostalgia just as much as academic fatigue. 

In high school, my best friend and I covered a wrestling match for some last-minute journalism credit. I was a casual fan; I couldn’t ref the sport by any means, but I knew enough to be able to write a quick article on it. School had been delayed that morning because it was an icy 11 degrees outside–which, for us east coast winter rookies, is too cold to bear–but we pushed through the nighttime wind that pinched our cheeks and chilled our bones. The bleachers were nearly empty, probably due to a combination of the weather and the fact that a lot of tests fell during that week, but we were directly on the sidelines more so than in those bleachers anyway. My friend brought her fancy camera, but it died before we could pin down a good action shot. 

I recall how my itchy-eyed exhaustion from a long day of classes and the shivering touch of the outside wind made me question if it was truly worth it to go to this match. But now I’m glad I did. While I can remember the camera’s mortality, I can also remember my friend and me laughing about how she forgot to charge it. While I can remember the winter’s wrath, I can also remember what it was like to have such a close view of the sport–the swift sprawling, the reflexive reversals, the reverberating smack of an opponent landing on the mat. While I can remember the looming Calculus quiz I had the next day, I can also remember the infectious excitement when the small but devoted audience cheered at our school’s dominant victory of 56-13. 

I didn’t realize how nostalgic this seemingly insignificant high school evening was until I went to the Bellarmine dual. This was my first time going to a Big Ten Wrestling event, and I enjoyed the exhilarating screams of the sizable crowd, the bright flashes of fire on the sidelines, and the thumping entrance music. Iowa was victorious with a whopping 40-0 win. Yet what made the experience so much richer for me was how I could, just for a moment, sink back into the memory of last year. 

As a freshman, I love how everything feels so new here in Iowa. I have been to wrestling matches before, but going to a Hawkeye one felt like such a distinctly unique experience. However, as my college friend and I left the stadium–buzzing with energy from the victory–I couldn’t help but shoot off a joking text to my high school friend: “Hey, at least my camera didn’t die this time.”