Wrestling's Annoying 'Thing'

And, remembering Dad a year later.

Dec 11, 2025

We all have a thing, right? We all have that certain-something that bugs, even while acknowledging it might be a ridiculous hang-up, yes?

Irregardless, whatever our thing is, it annoys us.

(Some folks’ thing is the use of the word irregardless. They’re positive it isn’t a real word. It is.)

Another high school and college wrestling season is upon us. That’s the good part.

The bad part?

Each season ushers in my personal, petty thing: hearing (and seeing on t-shirts and in wrestling forums) the tired, wannabe-hardguy wrestling slogans tearing down The Other Winter Sport.

Wrestling: What men do during boys basketball season…If wrestling were easy, they’d call it basketball…Basketball has time outs–wrestling has blood time!

And, lest we forget that classiest of gems: Wrestling: Because other sports require only one ball.

Cuz nothing screams secure-in-our-skin like MySport’sBetterThanYours maxims, I guess.

Most embarrassing of it all? The out-loud inferiority complexes are found only in our sport. Show me the mass-produced tees that high school and college baseball fans wear slamming track and field, or soccer and football peeps cracking on cross-country runners.

As the cool kids say, I’ll wait.

If my old-man rant sounds familiar, I wrote about it eight years ago in a column for Trackwrestling. Persuasively, it landed with the thud of a cotton ball. The catchphrases and attire remain ~~epidemic~~ alive and well in the wrestling community.

I reached out to Tim Johnson. Johnson’s a 2007 inductee of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Dan Gable Museum and a broadcaster for the Big Ten Network and ESPN. A former coach, Johnson’s one of wrestling’s GoToGuys when a voice of reason is sought. I had to make sure I wasn’t nuts.

“I don’t notice that stuff,” Johnson said. “Probably because I don’t focus on it. Whatever you focus on expands.”

It’s like this when talking with Johnson. Sage tidbits of wisdom eventually make their way into conversations.

“But, if it’s out there, it’s trash-talk,” he said. “I just won’t do that. One of my best friends coached basketball, and we don’t lift things up by tearing other things down. You get older, you understand life a little more, you mature a little, and eventually you learn there’s nothing good that comes from it.”

It feels like wrongheaded jealousy. Whether it’s because basketball is covered by the media more, or that in most regions of the country it overwhelmingly draws larger crowds, or that many get into wrestling after being cut from hoops, I don’t know.

The slogans/mantras/maxims just annoy the DanHodge out of me. Irregardless of their popularity.

A Year Later

It’s been just over a year since my dad died. Today I’m thinking of an exchange we had in our kitchen one morning.

It was early, but Dad was always the first one awake. I was awake, too, but for less noble reasons. I wasn’t saying a rosary, getting ready for Mass, or making coffee to bring upstairs to my mom. I may or may not have been looking for a couple Advils—for the same reason other 19 and 20 year-olds with fake IDs seek Advils on morning-afters.

Dad was making coffee. Out of the blue, he asked a question.

“When do you think is the best time to pray, Nick?” he said.

Dad took matters of prayer and faith seriously. To bring a quick end to whatever he was doing, I played it safe.

“All the time,” I said.

Dad smiled, but only slightly. I wasn’t off the hook.

“Good answer,” he said. “But specifically, when do you think the best time to pray is?”

Sh-t, I thought. Around Dad, cursing was best kept as a thought.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“When we least feel like it,” he said. “It shows real love. Doing something when we really don’t want to shows love.”

And that was that. It’s all Dad said.

Dad wasn’t overly sentimental or sappy, but he didn’t balk at saying what he thought needed to be said, either.

I don’t know why he thought it was a good time to share that nugget in the kitchen that specific morning. Not sure if he suspected why I needed the Advils, or if he knew. Like a lot of good dads and stubborn sons, we’d had arguments before about choices I was making at the time.

That morning, there was no argument. Dad just said what he said, and went upstairs.

I’ve told my kids this story. I’ve told them their grandpa’s when we least feel like it line, too. Gravestones can’t bury good, memorable lessons.

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