I am not a sports fan. I never have been and more than likely never will be. I am so far gone that I do not have the faintest idea why anyone likes sports.

Baseball is boring.

Football is tolerable, but fails to capture my interest.

Basketball makes me wish for a slow and agonizing death.

I only like hockey when there is a fight breaking out.

Do not even get me started on golf.

The only sport that I actually do not hate is wrestling. It is not the sport I can put up with the most or that I hate the least. I genuinely like wrestling, which was weird for me at first. Me? Liking a sport? Me?

It captures my attention and each match sucks me in. I like watching wrestling. I like cheering on Huntley at the few meets I go to. I like getting all worked up over two wrestlers who are evenly matched in a fight that is extremely close. I like learning the names of all the wrestlers. I like feeling like I know them, even though they don’t know me.

Unfortunately, a majority of the school remains oblivious to the sport that I fell in love with. Some do so by choice. It is not news to me that wrestling can sometimes be dubbed as odd.

“Wrestling is considered a weird sport,” said varsity wrestler Christopher Jaggers, “as it mainly involved two men ‘grabbing at each other,’ as most people would put it.”

I know that wrestling consists of much more than that, and the wrestlers certainly know that, but do the students at Huntley?

Part of the reason wrestling does not have a large fan base is because of the lack of knowledge of the sport.

“[Wrestling] is not understood very well by people who don’t do it,” said varsity coach Benjamin Bertelsman.

Wrestling is not a sport that many take the time to get to know unless they themselves are participating in it. If the sport was given the opportunity to be understood, it could be a lot more successful with the fanbase, and increase the number of people wanting to join the team.

There are many misconceptions about not just wrestling, but any sport that is not as popular as football or baseball. One of the most infamous misconceptions is that wrestling is “easy.” Wrestling is a discipline sport. The wrestlers are constantly pushing themselves and cutting back on food in order to make weight.

“On the football team, you can sit on the bench all four years and still say you’re on the football team,” said Bertelsman. “In wrestling, we’re going to throw you out there. In wrestling, you have to go out there and at least compete.”

Compete they do. This year, varsity only lost four matches out of 24. They also had six sectional qualifiers, the highest number they’ve had yet.

Wrestling has had an exceptional year, yet there’s been almost no mention of it anywhere.

Except here, of course.

Why is that? The wrestlers work just as hard at practice as football or baseball or basketball players do. Wrestlers strive to be better, just like they do. They have the same amount of passion in their hearts for their sport.

“For those six minutes or less, it’s all about me and my match. Nothing else. No one else,” said varsity wrestler Nate Urban.

Wrestling by no means deserves more recognition than other sports. Just because it is my personal favorite doesn’t mean it is better or any more special than any other sport at Huntley. I am just a little peeved that there has been no mention of it anywhere, by anyone in the school, teachers and students alike.

Silence is bad and can be really discouraging. The worst-case scenario is the famous comment that is every wrestler’s pet peeve: “Wrestling isn’t even a real sport.”

Thankfully, I’ve never heard that said at Huntley. If that time comes, it is safe to say that I will be more than a little upset.