Watching events on television of the Summer Olympics 2016 in Rio de Janeiro has got me to think about my own experience with Olympic level athletes when I was in high school. I was in my sophomore year, and my first year in high school. Back then, during my high school days, the high school freshmen went to school with the 7th and 8th graders; after finishing your freshman year you went to the final three years of your schooling at the local high school. I was interested in wrestling, and while I was in junior high school, I tried out for the team early on and made it. A couple of years of wrestling at that level would help hone your skills so that you could compete at the high school level where things become more serious.
My mini disaster of suffering a broken bone in my right hand during a wrestling match was still two years away, and as a sophomore wrestler there was little that I feared health wise. I was supple and strong, and tried each and every wrestling move shown to me by my coaches. We had a good team, some called it a good club, and we competed well in our division in Nassau County and on Long Island as a whole. It was a good time to be in wrestling, it seemed. I wrestled on the junior varsity team during my sophomore year, and the guys who wrestled on the varsity team were top notch athletes indeed. I remember one of the varsity wrestlers on our team that year eventually made it to the state finals in New York and placed third in the state. So, we felt as a team that we could compete.
What had happened at the Munich 1972 Summer Olympics was quite a tragedy and unfolded in front of the whole world. You can look it up; I won’t get into the horrible details here, but some of the lives that were lost were wrestlers. Although they were not wrestlers from the U.S., I and other wrestlers really felt the loss; we were filled with sorrow for such a loss of life. I watched on TV as the Munich games continued that year, and cheered for the wrestlers, from all of the nations really. The U.S. Olympic wrestling team did bring home some medals that year and I had no idea that I was going to meet a couple of these wrestlers during my sophomore wrestling year in high school.
Our high school coaches knew some of the people at the New York Athletic Club and had arranged for some of the U.S. Olympic wrestling team members to come to our high school and work out with us. They came to a couple of our practices that we regularly had on Saturday mornings during our wrestling season. It was amazing to me to wrestle athletes who had competed in the Munich 1972 Summer Olympics and had won medals. I watched our powerful varsity team members get thrown about, seemingly with ease by these fantastic wrestlers. I got my chance to wrestle too, and I was thrown about with ease as well. I have never put my hands on a person so strong, so fast and seemingly immovable on a wrestling mat as those from our U.S. Olympic wrestling team. Learning from those wrestlers was one of the greatest sports experiences of my life, if not the best.
During that 1972-1973 wrestling season, our high school wrestling team did quite well; its division competitions and league championship efforts revealed a team of wrestlers with some real heart, drive and dedication in what they believed. I wrestled as well as I could, and did well, and my coaches were pleased with what I had done as a young sophomore wrestler that year.
So, when I look at this year of 2016 and its Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, I am reminded of the deep sacrifice an athlete must make to rise to the top of their sport. And it makes no difference if one is male or female, the effort required to rise to the top is the same for both. This realization that I had garnered from my wrestling days did find its way into other areas of my life, and my music life was included into this way of thinking.
I knew that I would have to sacrifice and train hard in order to find a way to rise up to the top of my musical profession. And when I say to the top, I mean this in a musician’s sense; I do not mean this in a music business sense. I don’t mean the top of some chart, or the most record sales, or the most public admiration. What I do mean about rising to the top in a musician’s sense is finding myself continuing to learn music, continuing to learn to play better on my chosen instrument, to take the risks required of me as a musician to break through with an original style, to do my best, and to bring joy to others who listen to my musical efforts. What I mean is to rise to the top of my own musical capabilities.
I have found myself playing music in many different places around the world, to many different people in our world. This takes some courage and confidence as an artist and musician to do. And rising up to the best of one’s abilities is the most that anyone can ask of us, and it is the most important thing that we can ask of ourselves. So, whether you are an athlete or not, play music or not, remember to seek to rise up to the top level of your ability in your life as best you can. Rise up to your own unique abilities, yes; they are yours and yours alone.
Rise up.
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