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Knowing about synonyms makes it easy to clarify things — In other words
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The quieter you become the more you are able to hear. — Rumi
Shawn Andrews pushes for reversals that put opponents on their backs. No surprise, then, that the Marysville High School wrestling coach put a positive spin move on how COVID-19 has drastically altered this year’s state tournament.
“There is overwhelming optimism because we’re just able to wrestle,” Andrews said this week, taking the glasshalf-full approach to the championship meets, which begin on Saturday in three separate locations around central Ohio.
Given the optics of wrestling as a close-contact sport, coaches had doubts whether the tournament would even happen, Andrews said. Nothing was taken for granted, not after COVID caused the last-minute cancellation of the 2020 tournament.
“You look back 365 days to when kids were in vans driving to Columbus when they got the call,” Andrews said. “We had to turn around and tell them, ‘The (tournament) is not happening.’ When
that wound still feels so fresh it’s easier to find comfort in the moment, in that we’re wrestling.”
Still, the wrestling will look and feel different. Instead of happening in the traditional Thursday, Friday, Saturday format, the tournament is being condensed into Saturday and Sunday as the three sites allow for a more streamlined schedule.
The matches will play out in front of a smattering of about 200 coaches, friends and family members at three high school gyms — Division I at Hilliard Darby, Division II at Highland, Division III at Marion Harding — instead of at Value City Arena, where attendance typically averages about 50,000 over a three-day event.
Dublin Coffman junior Seth Shumate was among those whose life changed on March 13, 2020, when learning he would be unable to defend the state title he won as a freshman at 195 pounds. Suddenly, Shumate would have no opportunity to join the exclusive four-time club of state champions.
“I thought it would only be postponed, but when it got removed everything set in and a lot of problems came with it,” Shumate said. “I had a lot of anger, a little bit of depression. It raised my anxiety.”
Shumate’s outlook eventually brightened, but not before he seriously considered quitting the sport. In his first tournament this season, competing under the new normal of no spectators, the 2019 state champion lost both his match and his lunch.
“I’m out there and it’s out of my normal zone and I look up at the lights and I end up throwing up three times midmatch,” he said. “I grew out of love with the sport at that point and thought, ‘I hate this season.’ ”
Long talks with his coaches rekindled Shumate’s enthusiasm, and he enters Saturday more “ultra-excited” than stressed out by the pressure to defend a title won two years ago. At 26-1 and having won the district last week at Darby, Shumate is favored to collect a second state title. But through COVID his perspective has shifted.
“Now I’m just wrestling, just happy to be back on the mat,” he said, echoing the comments of Andrews and of his own
coach, Chance Van Gundy.
“Ask 99.9% of the wrestlers and if it meant that they’d still get their state tournament, they’d wrestle in a barn,” Van Gundy said of the venue change. “They would wrestle in a barn on the side of a country road … just getting that opportunity they didn’t get last year. I don’t care if it’s in Hilliard Darby High School or the Schottenstein Center, we’re still getting a chance to compete.”
Van Gundy and Andrews are spinning the return to Darby as specifically beneficial to their wrestlers.
“We’re looking at it as home-court advantage, since we were at Darby for district last week,” Van Gundy said.
Andrews is doing the same, pointing out that “especially for guys who just wrestled at Darby it will feel a little like ‘Groundhog Day.’ But there is comfort in that, too.”
Ultimately, missing out on wrestling at the Schott is balanced by the chance to wrestle anywhere, Andrews added.
“You can tell with our guys there’s a gratitude there,” he said.
Shumate summed it up: “I’m just happy to be out there, seeing the team grow this season, leading them, watching the seniors. It’s been a long season for sure, but a fun one.” roller@dispatch.com @rollercd