I wrestled at lightweights. My growth spurt came in my last two years of high school, of which my senior year was at a nearby school that didn’t have a wrestling team. (We switched farms late my junior year.)
When I competed interscholasticly I never lost. I simply wasn’t eligible by mid-season. You see, our coach was also the biology and chemistry teacher. He was a former Army major, and didn’t cut any slack in the classroom. I had Algebra my freshman year, and that instructor was a lib that actually was subtly anti-athlete. I only took those courses because my best friends were taking for them.
But I was (as my coach told me) built for wrestling. Taller than anyone in my weight class, I was light in the skinny legs, but well built from the waist up. Guys my weight just couldn’t pin me. I would usually have the leverage advantage, wear them down, and pin them. Wrestling practice was a way to delay the inevitable: The going home to farm chores.
I learned the phrase “ never let em up until the count is over”. Too bad our politicians don’t act the same way.