Chris Donnelly '16 Recruiting Profile

The drive I have acquired to succeed  over the years has stemmed from the most important thing in my life, wrestling. I started wrestling at the age of 10 and instantly fell in love with the sport. What I truly believe drew me to the sport was how closely individualism and teamwork came together. Along with these attributes, wrestling also taught me how to take on any challenge. The best way to describe wrestling is with a quote by the great, former wrestler, Dan Gable, “Once you’ve wrestled, everything else in life becomes easy.”
One of the first lessons wrestling has ever taught me was simply, you choose when you are defeated. What I mean by this is, if you fail, you can either get up and try again or stay down and accept defeat.  An example of this would be my loss to a wrestler from Middletown, NJ. It was close, but I knew I should have won. The same wrestler happened to be my first opponent in the post season district tournament. I wrestled tough and won by a pin in 1 minute and 8 seconds. Without having learned this lesson I may not have had the mental toughness I needed to overcome the loss and advance to the semifinals of the tournament. You can never give up on something you want whether it is a life goal, academic goal or sports goal. Without learning this very valuable lesson early on in my life, I do not know if I would truly understand how effective it is when your drive is aimed towards your goals.
While wrestling is an individual sport, you still have the advantage of the support of an entire team. In my opinion, there is no better feeling than being a part of a team. Without my wrestling experience and the support of my team, my drive for success would not be what it is today. Through this experience, I was able to do well in school as well as on the mat.
I conclude with a quote from the infamous, Jordan Belfort who said,”The 97% of people that quit too soon are employed by the 3% that never gave up.”  Without a desire to succeed you cannot move forward in life.