Allow me a short story about myself.

Growing up, I never thought about wrestling, unless it was to dismiss it as the sport of thugs and 300-pounders. Imagine my surprise when, as a scrawny 100-pound freshman, my P.E. coach, also the school's wrestling coach, asked me to come out for the team. Coach, you see, was doing what most wrestling coaches have to do: He was scouring the halls and his classrooms to fill out his roster. He didn't have a 96-pounder on the freshman team.

"What the heck," I thought. "I don't play a winter sport, I'm competitive and (most important to me at the time) I can quit whenever I decide I don't like it."

Well, that never happened. I never was much good (though my team won two state titles, I didn't qualify for state until my senior year, and it's much easier to do that in New Mexico than it is in California), but I learned to love the sport. I grew up in that wrestling room. My mom and dad were doing a fine job, but I never would have learned so much maturity and discipline from them as I did on the mats.

So, yeah, I'm biased. But I just don't get how so many seem to be ignoring the fact that the CIF state wrestling championships are at Rabobank Arena this weekend. If you think wrestling is for thugs and 300-pounders, do yourself a favor and come have a look. Maybe a few reformed thugs (like any other sport) and maybe a few 280-pounders, but you'll probably never see a group of more intense competitors at one place in your life.

I love that wrestling is a purely physical, purely one-on-one sport. Getting tired? Too bad, nobody to help. Hurt? Suck it up or lose what you've been working for all year. Lost? Sorry, you've got to take the blame. but if you won? All the glory goes to you. You don't see high school kids facing that kind of pressure every day. And this is one of the best tournaments in the nation, right here in Bakersfield.

And for those who are afraid they'll be lost or won't understand what's going on, here are some of the basics: There are 14 weight classes (and none of them, believe it or not, are for 300-pounders), and each one will start with 40 competitors in a double-elimination bracket this weekend. Among them will be some of the best wrestlers in the nation and some who will be pinned twice and told to head to the stands.
Lose once, and you can no longer win state, though you can come back through and take third place. Lose twice, and you can only hope you've made it far enough to earn an elusive spot on the podium (top eight earn medals).

Here are some scoring basics:

There are three basic positions in wrestling: Neutral, top and bottom. What position the wrestlers are in limits the type of scoring they can do.

From the neutral position, wrestlers can score a "takedown," when one manuevers the action so that he's now on top. That's worth two points.
From the bottom position, wrestlers can "escape" back to neutral for one point or earn two points for a "reversal," which is where the bottom wrestler ends up on top.
There is only one good way to score from top, and that's "nearfall" points. This is, of course, when you nearly pin your opponent (his shoulders must be at less than a 45-degree angle with the mat). Hold that position for two seconds for two points and for five seconds for three points.
There are more-nuanced ways to score points, too; for instance, if one wrestler is warned for stalling twice in a match, the other is awarded a point. If the top wrestler locks his hands without working for a pin, that's a point for the bottom wrestler. There are others, but I'll spare you those for now.
Of course, any time there's a pin (one wrestler's shoulders are controlled and flat on the mat, even for a split-second), the referee will slap the mat and the match is over. Otherwise, the winner will be decided by scoring through three two-minute periods.

So get out to Rabobank and enjoy yourself this weekend (It'll be good for Bakersfield's economy too!). Doors open at 8 a.m. Friday and Saturday, wrestling starts at 9 each day, with championship matches set for 7:15 p.m. Saturday. Cost is between $11-25 per session, depending on which of three sessions you choose to attend and how good you want your seats. Children, students and seniors can get in for $8-10.

— Posted by Zach Ewing