I find myself sailing through an ocean of memories, time at my back, thrusting me forward towards the inexorable end to the wrestling season. I feel an increasing sadness and want the winds to shift the other way so I can relive the memories all over again, taken back to the first day I took photos with the team.
When I first started this project with Duke wrestling in October, before the season started, the time to work on it seemed infinite. ACCs and NCAAs were so far away. Ever since Southern Scuffle, however, the winds have seemingly accelerated and I find myself only a few weeks from the season’s end. On the journey though I’ve met some incredible people, both the student athletes of course, but also the coaching and support staff.
My hard drive is increasingly filled with images of the wrestling team that I have not looked at and edited yet. It’s not from laziness or being busy that I’ve not gone through them; it’s that once I go through them, and finish up editing all the photos, it will all be over; there will be nothing left to do. I find solace knowing that there are unseen images sitting on my hard drive waiting for my attention, allowing me to relive some fun moments with the guys and keep the project alive.
It’s often noted that human tend to concentrate on what they don’t have more than what they do. One thing I don’t have right now is photos of the wrestlers off the mat. Despite all the photos I have, it all feels incomplete. Over the next few weeks I will be working to get a more 360 view of wrestling life; the moments between friends at home, eating out, etc.
This week I came out for a couple practices as well as weights. One thing I have picked up on during practices was the variety of singlets I see. This has been another difference I have observed between wrestling and other team sports. Other teams have everyone wearing the exact same practice gear, down to the exact same colors. But it’s only appropriate that wrestlers, always the contrarians, would do things differently.
If they are wearing a singlet, it would be unusual they would wear a Duke singlet. Instead the singlets they wear are a panoply of colors and teams, representing past experiences and tournaments they have been in.
Ask a wrestler about their singlet and you’ll hear the story of how they got it. One of the freshman, Kaden Russell, was wearing one today that I thought was especially colorful and interesting, so I asked him about it. He got it from a tournament in Virginia Beach, which contributes so the beach feel of the singlet with a surfing board and Neptune, the god of the seas, emblazoned. He even mentioned that at some tournaments the wrestlers will trade singlets with each other, adding to their expanding wardrobe of singlets from across the country. It reminds me a bit of soccer players in tournaments trading jerseys.
Next time you are at a wrestling practice or tournament, ask a wrestler about their singlet; you may hear an interesting story of its origin. Below are some of my favorite singlets that I saw over the season.
