I don't think I ever went home to Exeter without visiting the cage.
Everything echoed, voices rose, everything seemed louder.
The sound of feet pounding on that board track.
It's a fond memory to me, although it may sound disparaging to say the cage smelled like dirt.
I can't think of another building at Exeter that meant as much to me.
If you've got a dream, you know you've got to go out there and protect it, and no matter
what the circumstances are.
We're not just in it for when things are good, we're in it because this is something
we're repassionate about.
We don't just quit, we don't just stop.
That specifically is what makes an Exonian an Exonian.
Every moment on the field, on the court, on the track, I mean it's just you have to value
it because you have to pretend it's your last one.
If you have that certain mentality, that just applies to everything you do.
Being part of such a competitive wrestling team, it's really helped me to transition
that characteristic of dedication to the classroom because I could never find that drive on my
own.
At the end of the day, you're all in this together.
My Exeter family is truly a whole.
It's not about what you receive, it's about what you give.
Living for others is something that Exeter tries to embody.
We learn it to bring it to wherever we're going next.
It's learning how to work as a group, it's learning how to be disciplined, it's learning
how to help other people.
You learn it here, you learn it by being part of a community.
You have to trust that the person to your right and to your left is doing their job
and that they trust you.
The qualities and values that are being instilled through sport are going to bring that to life.
It's really about holding something that has been given to them by everyone that is working
for them and it's their job to hand it off in better shape as they move on and graduate.
I felt that I was in most of my classes the slowest student in the class.
It was humiliating to me that I did not graduate with the class I came in with.
The wrestling program at Exeter is without a doubt in my mind the reason I stayed, the
only reason I graduated.
Because if you're given the opportunity to do something you love, you won't want a coast.
And I learned that from wrestling before I started to seriously write.
The dear old cage which I love so much really is old and needs to be replaced, but it's
because achieving something beyond what you last achieved is a way of measuring yourself
and facilities are part of that.
