I was in the beginning of my 2nd year of wrestling and was facing an opponent who outmatched me easily. He worked his combinations faster and better than I and shortly I found myself in the awkward position of having his arms pinning mine to my back in what is affectionately known as a “Chicken-Wing”. He started to pry my arms and my back of course over to expose my back to the mat. I, however, am probably the most stubborn person most people have ever met, and this was truer still on the mat. Instead of allowing him to torque my back to the mat I fought against it until my left arm and shoulder were stretched out above my head. A sharp referee w

ould have recognized this as what is called a potentially dangerous and stopped it whistling us up, but he was not on his game that day, and in an instant, my fate change drastically!

So life proceeded from there, but because action was not taken immediately, even the surgeries I had have not been totally effective and I still deal with shoulder problems today. I also lost my Junior and Senior year of wrestling to this along with some functionality in other sports. However, in retrospect I am not sure if I would take the fall on that or not.

Since I was not able to do sports I became involved in a training program to become a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer on Networks running Windows NT 4.0. This training and the ensuing certification enabled me to get a position two weeks out of high school whose salary rivals many people’s parents, including my own. I am doing fairly well in my college education, although I struggled at first as I was and am working full-time. Sometimes I think, “What would my life be like, if not for that one event?” I can never be sure, but assume I would have continued my progress in wrestling, and may have even been able to earn a partial scholarship at a university. That is a big “what if,” but more realistically, when I could no longer compete on the same level, my life changed drastically. Before that I held a 4.0 GPA for my first two years of high school, but without the focus, positive influence, and ment

Some topics in this essay:
, Windows NT, Junior Senior, Engineer Networks, 40 gpa,