Finding security with my identity was a big step, but only a small part of defining me.  I’m not sure if I over-ate while looking for comfort or if I just loved snacks; but I did a lot of eating.  Weighing over 210 by the age of twelve, I did not put sports as a high priority. I attempted baseball and even soccer, but I never found satisfaction in playing the “fat kid” positions. Swearing off sports seemed to be an option until a wrestling flyer was sent home.  All the wrestlers I knew of were big guys, and I felt I could fit in.  After convincing my parents I wouldn’t be killed by pile drivers, they signed me up, and I proudly donned my singlet and hit the mat.   The experience was incredibly hard but amazingly satisfying.  I found my passion within wrestling.  With every victory my confidence grew and my health improved. The sacrifices of social invitations seemed to go unnoticed as I trained daily and traveled every weekend to tournaments. 

Although known as the smart guy, the sweet boy, and the funny class leader, I was also known as the fat kid, until wrestling sculpted my physique into chiseled muscle.. I compete at 189 pounds, the same weight I was in fifth grade.  After years of dedication, sweat, tears and sacrifice, I have learned, in the face of adversity, I can combat any situation that challenges me. Diverse, competitive, and challenging environments have always helped me to better myself.  I honestly believe Olympian Dan Gable said it best:  “Once you’ve wrestled, everything else in life is easy.” 

That was a small portion of the Common Application essay that my son wrote for admissions to college one year ago.   Wow, 1 year already?!  He turns 18 next week, Nov. 10^th and as I sit here with joyful tears reflecting our journey to this point I am filled with a sense of pride that can’t be easily explained. 

This isn’t a sappy mom letter telling you how proud I am of my son, or how great I think he is, anyone that knows me personally knows I save all that for my Facebook wall!  This is instead, a THANK YOU.  A huge, warm, loving, family-like Thank You!  To every member in the Wrestling Community that has made our lives and our children’s lives so much richer! 

In 2002 we stepped into a world of extreme craziness.  We would rise at 4:00AM to drive for hours with hungry children to wait in the cold gym for what can only be described as, the longest days ever, we traveled across the country, sometimes for only 2 matches (that usually ended within the 1^st round by pin), we drove loads of smelly, sweat soaked knee-padded boys telling crude fart jokes for hours to far away tournaments to sit for days in bleachers and wait for that 6 minutes of “GO TIME” and we did this for the past 10 years with a smile and glazed look in our eyes like an addict getting a fix.  There are days when I think I should join a group, raise my hand and say “Hello, my name is Toni Brown and I’m addicted to Wrestling”!

This addiction sneaks up slowly.. first, you help by running bout sheets because you’re tired of just sitting in the stands, then you learn the pairing routine, or how to explain the wall brackets and answer questions to first time parents in hopes of hooking them into your world and making them addicted too.  Eventually you volunteer to help at the State tourney, or you have an idea and decide to host your own tournament and start your own youth club, you may even get crazy enough and start your own mobile fruit smoothie/coffee shop and work wrestling tournaments across the Western Region calling it “Extreme Caffeine”, but at some point you raise your hand 1 too many times around the California USA Board members and they, being addicts themselves, realize they have an enthused parent to work with and before you know it, BLAM… you’re an association director running your own flock of wrestling clubs!   Ok so, maybe this is just my story but if you’re reading this then we have more in common than not and you’re in this boat with me!

My point is this, “Without wrestling, my live wouldn’t be filled with so many wonderful memories, great people I consider family, and my son would not be attending a Division 1 College”.   This incredible sport has taught my sons lessons of sacrifice, discipline, commitment, perseverance, how to deal with defeat and rise above by working hard, physical training and nutrition, but most of all how to stand on their own two feet. 

I am very proud to say Dahlton’s common application essay, along with extreme hard work in the classroom, hours of community service, years of dedication to his sport and his social sacrifices paid off and he graduated from a small Division 5 high school and was accepted to Stanford.  He was not recruited onto the team or given the easy path of skipping SAT’s, ACT’s or essays because he was such a great wrestler.  Instead, after falling short every year at Masters and never seeing State, he worked that much harder in the classroom and trained that much harder at summer camps.  He worked for hours on essays, studied long grueling hours for exams and showed all heart in his effort to get himself into the school of his dreams with numerous academic scholarships.  WRESTLING TAUGHT HIM THAT!!!! 

Thank you again, to every member of our “extended wrestling family” that believed in him and encouraged him along the way, that patted his back after a hard loss, or shook his hand after a huge win.  You helped mold him into the fine young man he is today and our family can’t thank you enough!

Please follow along with his wrestling career at:  http://www.gostanford.com/sports/m-wrestl/mtt/brown_dahlton00.html

God Bless you all, stay safe & Keep Wrestling!