Ask Cael: Question: Take us through your wrestling experience as a child. With three brothers, how has that helped you become as good as you are. what was it like when your older brothers came home from practice and showed you what they learned that day. How did that influence you to keep wrestling?

Story Published Friday, October 2nd, 2009

Question from Andrew:  Take us through your wrestling experience as a child. With three brothers, how has that helped you become as good as you are. what was it like when your older brothers came home from practice and showed you what they learned that day. How did that influence you to keep wrestling?

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Growing up with siblings has many benefits.  One being that you learn to compete right away.  Growing up with two older brothers was a huge advantage for me.  As the younger brother I was thrown in with my brothers at a young age.  I trained with them, all the way through high school. Luckily I was bigger for my age then they were, so were close to the same size until late in high school.  So I grew up getting pounded on by my two older brothers.  There were also a couple other older kids in our community that I was similar in size to that just hammered me.  I might have only scored a few legit points (if that) on either Brett Gappmayer or Craig Jensen in many years of practices.  Neither they nor my brothers would give me anything because they probably thought I was a little too mouthy.  So I tried to keep up.

In elementary school I wrestled with my brothers on the jr. high team.   My brothers were always a level ahead of me and as I trained with them it pulled me along with them.   That was a big advantage.  Also the great thing about brothers is how competitive you are with each other.  Our practices were very intense.  The last peson in the world you want to lose to in practice is your brother.  My toughest matches growing up were in practice.

My brothers paved the way for me.  They went to the big tournaments, did well, and showed me that when my time came that I could win too.  My brothers were so motivated in both wrestling and academics.  My older brother Cody was a straight 4.0 GPA and Cole slacked a little and had a 3.96.  So my bros set the standard and it was fun to try and keep up with them.

In college having my brothers around helped me tremendously.  Again they paved the way and helped me to understand that I could win.  They were the hardest working kids on the team and I followed their lead.  We only had one car so I had to wait for them to finish their workouts before I could get home. So I just did what they did and did extra work every day.  Having two brothers at college with me made it feel like home.  I knew they were 100% loyal to me and had my back all the time.  That was a big deal to me.

They were by my side all the way through my competitive career and now Cody is by my side in coaching.

My dad and his approach with my bros and I is what ultimately set us up to have strong careers.  I think it is critical for parents to help young kids develop of love of competing and not a love of winning.  Kids need to develop of love of the sport before winning and losing becomes an issue.  That is if you want your kid to have a strong high school, and hopefully college career where they get close to their full potential.  If someone loves to compete then they hate to lose.  Hating to lose is the best motivator in my opinion.  If you hate to lose you will do everything you need to do to not lose.  That is a deep, entrenched motivation.  Liking to win is a shallow motivator that is quickly forgotten in tough training and outside of the practice room and competition mat.  Hating to lose will motivate someone to live the lifestyle that it takes to reach your potential.  My dad also helped us to love hard work.  Those two things are, in my opinion, the key to a very solid foundation for future success.

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