by The sport of wrestling has the power to transform lives, it is a pathway to discipline, strength, determination, patience, and respect. It makes total sense too that the sport of football goes hand in hand with wrestling. Football is also a sport built on discipline, strength, determination, patience, and respect.
Not only do the principles of wrestling apply to football and vice-versa, but even the nature of athleticism in both sports apply to each other as well! Football players will eventually find that having a low “pad-level” also applies in wrestling, as the saying goes, “low man wins”.
Wrestling challenges the brain, it challenges the wrestler to make split second decisions on how to attack the body of the opposing wrestler. Much like an offensive or defensive lineman in football, linemen have to think about how to attack the opposing lineman. Hand fighting, a MAJOR part of successful offense in wrestling is also a MAJOR part of success in terms of blocking or shedding blocks in football.
Coaches at the collegiate level like Nick Saban, now retired, even admitted to heavily recruiting football players who also wrestled at the high school level! Stephen Neal, two-time NCAA individual champion in wrestling, was also a multi-time Super Bowl winner with the New England Patriots.
He genuinely believes in the power wrestling has to make a football player that much better, especially a fellow offensive lineman such as himself. Taking this knowledge in hand, it perfectly illustrates, especially in an time where athletes tend to specialize, the importance of not just wrestling and playing football together, but being a multi-sport athlete in general.
-Jack Chapman
