Communities are everywhere and they always have been. A community is not only a town, but it is a place where people can say that they belong because of a similar lifestyle and values. Someone can belong to more than one community at a time, and they do not even need to be close to each other. What makes a community is not where someone is, it is who they are and what they want to be. A community is not simply a group of people who live near each other it is so much more than that it is a family.

A wrestling team is by far the tightest family that I have ever seen or been a part of in my life. Almost every day each and every member of the team is expected to show up and work his body to its limits sometimes twice a day and then come in the next day and do it all over again. In Jane Howard’s In Search of the Good Family she says that every family has some sort of leader who leads the rest and brings everyone together as a whole. For any wrestling team anywhere the person who assumes this role is the coach. Being a coach to a wrestling team means that you do just as much work as every other wrestler on the team and you have to keep all of the team members in line and in good spirits. Being a coach means that you also have to deal with the parents of the wrestlers and the people of the community that are against dropping weight and having practice after practice that wears all the members of the team to their core, but they know that they are doing a good thing and making everyone on the team a better person so they do not change what they do they just deal with it and let people think what they want. Without a coach any wrestling team would fall apart.

Coaches do not encourage any negative behavior between wrestling teams they like us to beat each ither up and then be best friends after the match is over. In Jane Howard’s In Search of the Good Family she says that good families are hospitable to other members of their family. Being part of a wrestling team not only means that your team is your family but it means that every other wrestling team is part of your family also, no one else can understand how physically and mentally demanding wrestling is no one knows how much you run and sweat, they have no clue what it takes to be a wrestler. We all know what that extra sprint is like when your body just wants to shut down but we have to tell it ‘no’ over and over again until you think you cannot go anymore but you don’t stop and no one but a wrestler would know what that is like. Knowing that makes you respect each other and admire the work that each wrestler puts in not only in the wrestling room but outside the wrestling room. When you go to wrestling meets and tournaments you do not see teams getting into fights with each other or putting down grading inferior wrestling. Instead you see teams talking to one another all of them laying on the mats before the meet starts and telling each other jokes, talking about how they have been doing and who they have wrestled and helping an opponent up win or lose, then shaking hands after the match is completed. The parents and might not know what we are talking about when we talk about weight and moves but we do and that is all that matters to us. The wrestling family is by far the most hospitable sports community that I have been involved with, wrestlers knows when to be intense and when to be respectful to each other.

The longer that you have been in the wrestling room the more respect you gain from your coach and your team mates. In Jane Howard’s In Search of the Good Family she states that good families honor their elders, the coach is always the most respected elder on the team because they have already been through all the practices and loosing that extra pound to make weight, and most of them have even accomplished every wrestlers dream of standing on the podium at the end of the state tournament. In every single wrestling room I have stepped foot in there are banners on the wall, these banners honor the wrestlers that have broken previous records and qualified or placed at the state tournament. Being on any of those banners is a very big honor and it makes the wrestlers that are not yet to that skill level look up to you and see you as a role model. Each and every member of the team will just beat another team mate into the ground and then ten seconds later they will still be friends because they have a mutual respect for each other’s abilities. Although if you excel in wrestling you are respected no matter what age you are, respect is very important to the wrestling family and a wrestling team without respect is not a team at all.

“Good families have a switchboard operator-someone who cannot help but keep track of all the others are up to” (Jane Howards In Search of the Good Family) each and every wrestling team out there has that one kid on the team who knows everything about all the other teams and all the do is talk wrestling and feed people information about opponents that they may have to face. Without this member of the team you wouldn't have a complete team at all. This member is crucial to the wrestling family because people on the team crave information about the best wrestlers in the states and is always asking about them, this person is also responsible for telling the members of their team if the opponent that you have to face is no good.

Wrestling is a very strong family and there is nothing out there that can or will ever break the bond that the wrestling family shares with each other. There are many pieces of the family that fit together just right to make it possible for a family to function together and the wrestling family has all of these pieces. No matter what anyone says about wrestling and the negative things that people associated with the sport, wrestlers have a bond that is much thicker than blood and makes each and every one of them a member of the family.