Wrestling Experience Life Lessons

by David Bono
Class of 1970, Browne & Nichols School, Cambridge, MA

I came from a legacy of serious wrestlers in my family. My older brother Gary B&N Class of 1968 was a champion wrestler at about 150 pounds in our Independent School League and my yet older brother Bruce, B&N class of 1964, was a heavyweight. At only 180 pounds Bruce, who was one of the bigger kids in his B&N class, was recruited without prior experience as a senior as someone brave or dumb enough to tackle the real heavy heavyweights from the other schools, some who weighed 240 pounds, who would beat him easily due to their size and experience. My skill was at a high level, not as good as my brother, Gary but I still won the majority of my matches in junior and high school and the league tournaments. My specialty was a very fast and effective takedown and a quick move to pin my opponents before the rhythm of the match had started. I was not very strong but used leverage to full advantage. A very few of my opponents were too strong for me to hold down and then I would lose by points. I was literally impossible to pin even by the state champions I faced no matter how strong they were. I could always hold out and twist my shoulder blades so that both would never touch down long enough. I really think I was a clever wrestler rather than a strong one.

In spite of my general confidence and skill I still would get a lot of butterflies in my stomach in the hours before the matches. I did not enjoy this aspect of the sport but figured it just was par for the course. I really did enjoy the challenge of one-on-one competition and I loved winning but I never beat myself up if I lost because I always did my best. I can say wrestling taught me to face difficult challenges and get through them. It also gave me confidence that I could probably control a much bigger person than myself just by holding on tight and restricting their movement using the usual techniques. It was a surprise to me that after all my experience I still would be so nervous.

In hindsight I now believe that my nerves were due to being an adolescent instead of mature because I would also get very nervous and insecure in a lesser but similar way with butterflies before any choral concert when I would sing especially if it was a small group or solo part. I was nervous like this from junior high and well past college when I sang with local community madrigal groups. Later in life perhaps when I became more confident of my singing, about age 30 or so, I lost all my fear of singing in public and could even sight read music in a concert without preparation and not be nervous at all and really enjoyed the experience. I am thinking now that confidence and experience is the key to relaxing and enjoying things that may be a challenge or difficult.

There is no question that the kids who played basketball or hockey thought the wrestlers were weird and they did not understand and made fun of us. I always was an oddball but did not mind not quite fitting in because it seemed that the wrestlers were by far the more intelligent, and thoughtful types. The jock mentality kids went along with the traditional sports at my school and the wrestlers were the eggheads. Frankly, I liked being friends with the eggheads.

The big life lesson I learned from wrestling is to face your challenges head on, quickly act, and do your best. As a result you will feel good about yourself. I have been blessed all my life with being able to fall asleep quickly every night when my head hits the pillow after a full day of doing all I can to help people.

Mr. Bono graduated in 1974 from Trinity College in Hartford CT with a BSE. He is an expert in precision analog instrumentation with more than 36 years professional experience in the field. His started his career in professional audio at dBx Corporation, Waltham, Massachusetts, building ultra-low distortion test oscillators, low-noise logarithmic programmable gain amplifiers, and low-distortion audio power amplifiers. In 1982 he co-founded a company to build computer controlled Vibrating Sample Magnetometers recognizing the demand for a modern instrument of this type. In 2000, David came to MIT where he provides technical support for several research groups and runs the Undergraduate Teaching Lab in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Originally published at wrestlingstories.org.