danblanchard

Owning the Mat Blog 11 Week 11   This week began with some bizarre injuries. We had nine wrestlers at both of our Monday and Tuesday night practices. However, Monday night’s injuries made it difficult for some of us, including myself, to do much on Tuesday night. Monday at practice, our 160-pounder reaggravated his rib […]

Owning the Mat Blog 10 Week 10   Well, this week has started off a little different. We began the week with a wrestling match against Putnam High School on Monday night. And although, as usual, we had one of our best wrestlers out for Covid, and another out because of work, it still felt

Owning the Mat Blog 9 Week 9   So, here we are going into the last full week of January. I’m beginning to feel like the end of the wrestling season is coming too fast. We only have a few weeks left, and then our regular season will be over. The Class M State Championships

Owning the Mat Blog 8 Week 8 Dang! Just found out that our wrestler who took first place over last weekend’s wrestling tournament caught Covid there and is now out for the next ten days. Two other wrestlers are considered close contacts, so now they are out too until at least the end of the

Owning the Mat Blog 7 Week 7 This season doesn’t seem to be getting any easier or closer to normalization. I found out over the weekend that two more of our wrestlers have Covid. My heart goes out to them and their families. In regards to wrestling, thankfully, no one on the team is considered

Owning the Mat Blog 6 Week 6 Here we go. Week six! It’s Monday, and we have 8 of our 10 wrestlers back for practice. For 90% of them, this is their first wrestling practice in 10 days. The boys looked like they were moving in slow motion today. The wrestlers were slow at everything

Owning the Mat Blog 5 Week 5   As a wrestling coach, I’ve never experienced a week like this before. Sunday, the day after Christmas, I took Dakota and the rest of my family, all seven of us, to Rec Park in Windham. There, the medical professionals gave us the PCR Covid test. I was

Owning the Mat Blog 4 Week 4   Mentally, Dakota seemed to be in a better place this week. Last Saturday was hard on him. But, I asked him how he was handling it, and he said he was fine. I watched him a little bit in practice Monday night, and he looked like the

Owning the Mat Blog 3 Week 3            I asked Dakota on Sunday morning how his elbow and arm were doing. Sometimes things hurt more the next day. To my delight, he said his arm was still feeling pretty good. However, he complained that the knee he had surgery on was

Owning the Mat Blog 2 Weeks 1 & 2 Wow! I can’t believe it’s here. It is the Monday after Thanksgiving in my son Dakota’s senior year of high school. And that means that it is the first day of wrestling season for Dakota. In addition, Dan Gable just called Dakota to wish him good