Wrestling is widely considered to be one of the oldest sports in the world, with depictions of wrestling-like matches being described in Ancient Sumerian texts and Wrestling itself being one of the first Olympic Sports, and a highly regarded one at that. This prestigious tradition continues on to modern day, where there are millions of wrestlers across the globe participating in thousands of various leagues and teams.
Johnny Fields, a senior at Sunlake High School, has been on the boy’s wrestling team at Sunlake High School for three years, further continuing the hallowed institution. He considers Wrestling to be one of his many passion and finds it to be “pretty fun”
To say that being on the Sunlake Wrestling team is not an easy feat is an massive understatement. The Wrestling team has a strict training regimen that includes practices every weekday and frequently hold additional training sessions at the Caveman Wrestling Club in Odessa. Yet to Fields, all this work is worth to get to something he loves.
While a Wrestling match is often a solo endeavor, Fields finds that being on a team is one of the best parts about wrestling. “What’s fun about wrestling is you,” he claims, “is that your coaches, your teammates, y’all all play around…maybe goofing around a bit.” According to him, the Wrestling Teams spend a lot of time together and as a result have a strong sense of camaraderie. “You’re going to [your] matches, you’re going to your team matches. Y’all supporting each other, you’re being there, you’re helping them with their grades.” He also believes that being on the team is a good way to keep people out of trouble, as each teammate looks out for each other, and also a good way to learn new tricks and moves.
Fields considers senior night to be one of his all-time favorite wrestling competitions. He is proud of how the night played out for the team and immensely enjoyed watching his fellow teammates smoothly carry out take-downs on their respective opponents. To him, it was Sunlake Wrestling at it’s finest.
As for the senior night ceremony itself, Fields believes that it “went very well.” He admits that there was a lot of picture taking done that night before the matches started, “Family’s taking pictures, friends taking pictures, coaches taking pictures with me, you know, how it is.” In the end he’s thankful for all the people on the team that took the time to build a strong relationship with him.
Fields has a rigorous routine he does every time before a match, and Senior Night was no exception to this. He started his night off with a prayer, followed by watching several different wrestling videos in the time leading up to his match. Once his match was close, he practiced his repertoire of wrestling moves and warmed up by jumping until the minutes before his match, in which he fell silent and waited to start, “Once I took a deep breath, they called my name, so I knew, okay, it’s time. So, when I got out, I did my thing.”
During his senior night match, he managed to get 16 points during one match, utterly demolishing his opponent. While he did celebrate the win with the rest of his teammates later, directly afterwards he shook hand with his opponent and made sure that he was okay. Although giving and taking hits is considered to be a normal part of wrestling, Fields reveals that after his match he apologized to his opponent. “We talked after the game. And, you know, I was telling him, I apologize. I was hitting him hard. I didn’t mean to, but he understand this is wrestling.”
Fields considers himself to be “really close” to his wrestling coaches here at Sunlake, viewing them akin to family.”I’m really going to miss them.” He exclaims, “They’re one of the greatest coach that I ever trained with, ever met. They keep me busy. If there’s anything that I need, they there for me.”
While he has always considered himself to be a quite sporty person, he didn’t get into wrestling until his sophomore year. He was first encouraged to try wrestling by several of his friends and members of his family who have also done competitive wrestling. They thought that he’d enjoy the intense physicality of the activity as other than Wrestling, Fields also enjoys going to the gym when he can and playing sports with other people, such as basketball and football, “It don’t matter what game,” he say, “I just get straight to working”
As for his Wrestling in his future, while he doesn’t plan on doing it professionally Fields plans ton putting those skills he learned to good use. Fields currently plans on enlisting in the US military upon graduating high school, although he is still undecided as to which specific branch to join. He plans to go to college during his enlistment to eventually become a commissions officer and be in the military for at least 20 years. To Fields, this is just “doing the right thing.”
Fields was originally inspired to join the military by his family. Many of his past ancestors, he explains, were enlisted in various branches of the US military and have participated in several different conflicts across the globe. He has been told multiple stories from his great-grandma and old family documents about his family exploits and is excited to add his own feats to the list. “She always used to tell me my family stories about going in the 1930s, the 1940s, the 1950s, maybe 1915, 1918? She just told me stories of what her mom used to tell her when she was a kid.”
Fields considers joining the military as the torch in his family being passed down to him and wants to be able to fight for freedom across the globe as they once did. “They was fighting for freedom of everybody, just not like people. So I was just, I’m going to do the same thing. I want to fight for everybody. I want freedom for everybody. ” He completely understands why his forefathers enlisted and eagerly awaits to follow in their footsteps, where ever that might take him in the future.
While excited about the possibilities the future will bring for him, Field admits that he will miss his current colleagues and teachers. When asked if he had any closing comments for them, he replied, “Make sure y’all guys stay out of trouble.” He says. “Do the right thing. Get good grades. Make sure you listen to your mom or your dad while they still live on this earth. If you don’t have anybody to talk to, always talk to your teachers, friends, anyone who’s willing to hear you out. Stay safe.”
