Posted Date: 02/01/2024

Wrestling:

Pinning Down Reece and Curtis

By Lane Owen

Because Riverside is such a small school, we have a joint wrestling program with Greybull. We always have a few kids that go out, this year it's the usual suspects, so I interviewed them, to see why they love the sport, what makes them show up to practice everyday ready to give it their all.  Most people could guess that wrestling isn't an easy sport, just by hearing or looking at everybody who takes place in the sport. “Not only do you have to be strong physically, you have to be strong mentally. You have to be able to pick yourself up. Literally.” said Reece Whisenant. Reece has been wrestling since he was a freshman. Reece was heavily induced by a few upperclassmen to get out and try wrestling, and it worked. “But that's what makes me love wrestling.” Reece remarked  “I think it's the most brutal, most changeling, hardest sport in the world, but it teaches you about humbleness, how to embrace the grind and shows you what hard work really looks like.” To see what really made wrestling so grueling and being able to teach you the things Reece talked about, I wanted to see what a normal practice was like.

 “Like every practice, we put our shoes on and it's pretty chill for the beginning part. Then we get a really good group stretch to do some cartwheels, frontrolls, back rolls and really just agility moves. After that, this is when the real practice begins. You'll start to do your everyday moves, then move to the really hard and fast paced part of practice. You do all types of shots with your partner for about two minutes. Then we work on bottom stuff, like getting away on bottom so more defensive type stuff. After all of that, we always go get a drink, come back, work on top stuff like breakdows and then some type of running or slide wrestling. And that's all in one day of practice.” So as you can see you have to be a really high spirited worker in wrestling, or as Curtis Strohschein puts it, “ It really teaches you hard work and dedication, and no matter how great your competition is, you’re only as good as the work you put in and you have to work for your dreams, and work for what you want to achieve.” 

Curtis started wrestling when he was about 4 years old in Newell, South Dakota before he moved here, to Basin. “I definitely wasn't forced to play in the beginning, but just like all little kids who do sports I was definitely forced to not quit” All of curtis’ brothers have done wrestling, and his brother Teagan is really who got everybody into wrestling. “I've always loved wrestling, I love the fact that it's more of a personal sport, and the only person you have to rely on is yourself. Nobody else. Sometimes it makes me so mad I want to punch a brick wall almost, but when you do good, you feel like you're on top of the world.” 

If you thought practice took a long time, wait until you hear about the actual tournaments and duals! “ We usually get there about an hour or two before weigh-ins, then try to just get comfortable and loose around everything, then we wait an hour or so, then weigh in. Then after that, you wait another hour or so. Then there's the coaches meeting, and the brackets were (sic) assigned a bout number.” If you don't know anything about wrestling like me, bouts are another word for the matches. 

“After all that, you just kinda wait and warm up, try and loosen up for your number to be called, and if you lose you have to go to the back of the bracket, and that takes absolutely forever.” It's a very time consuming sport nonetheless, there's a lot of waiting and being able to stay on your toes the entire time.

 Curt and Reese have also become really good friends over the years of wrestling together, and they want to encourage others to join wrestling and become their best version of themselves!