Every so often people get to experience something that will shape there life forever. Many times these experiences only last a short while, or the people you experience them with change but the memory remains.

Your first girlfriend. Getting your license. Graduating.

Sometimes you catch yourself thinking that nothing can beat the experience you have, and then something more profound happens and you are amazed.

The 2017 wrestling team is something that will be tough to beat in comradery and family. Every hellish practice, every minor injury, every lecture that ended up feeling more like a punishment. From coming close to a fist fight with your practice partner to screaming your lungs out, cheering for them mat side, this season will forever be embedded as “one of those moments.”

Every drop of blood and sweat you give for the brotherhood is for them. It’s, “I got your back when your back’s against a wall,” (Kenny Chesney). Sharing the best and the worst of times, redefining each other every day, becoming closer every time. This is the oath you sign when you join the wrestling family.

With the amazing experience comes the devastating challenge of saying goodbye. For me, my entire team from freshman year will be graduated this year. Three years of pushing each other to our absolute limits, gone.  Finding each other’s strengths and weakness, gone. Redefining what it means to be part of the family, gone.

The bitter-sweet realization that you will never have to be beaten and broken by them anymore but that you will never in your life have friends like them is one that is hard to deal with. The father figures you have that coach you and keep you from a bad path are something most people can never experience, and for all that I am thankful.

Every “One last sprint”, even when it’s a lie. Every insulting comment that motivates you. Every “Initiation” ceremony.

The things you remember are not what you do in the short time you have, it’s who you do it.  I could not have asked for a better group of people to experience the best and worst of it with.

Saying goodbye will be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I know that even if we aren’t on the same mat, we will have each other’s back, because family is family.