Page 15 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 93, No. 2 Winter 2013

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moments of my life. I always knew my
body was physically capable of taking
down an opponent. But the challenge
was gathering the mental energy to act
on that belief.”
Thomas Brew ’13, a 120-pounder who
spent part of his Sixth Form season
rehabilitating an injury, points to “red
flag day” as the Everest of his SPS wres-
tling experience. On that day, midway
through each season, the wrestlers test
their mental and physical endurance
in two hours of pure conditioning –
with no rest. Activities vary, but might
include two-minute all-out sprints,
triple sets of minute-long wall-sits,
stair climbing, and turns carrying their
drilling partners back and forth across
the mat. Wrestling is a sport, Brew ex-
plains, that can elevate a developing
103-pounder to glory as equally as a
chiseled 195-pounder.
“What’s interesting about wrestling
is that it’s one of the fairest sports,” he
says. “There are no excuses. Everyone
is competing against someone the same
size. You can’t always tell who will win
based on who has the most muscles –
it’s all about technique and mental and
physical preparation.”
“You get out of wrestling what you put
in,” adds Marsh, who wrestled at St. Paul’s
and at Williams College before returning
as an assistant coach this season. “It’s one
of the most tightly bonded teams because
you can’t get better without pushing each
other in practice.”
As in other great programs, tradition
is an additional teammate, with current
athletes inheriting the desire to carry
on the pride of their predecessors.
Craig Spivey ’83 considered his coach,
John Buxton, to be his “guiding light –
I owe much of who I am today to him.”
Spivey, who wrestled for the first time
as an SPS Third Former and concluded
his career as a national champion in
the 167-pound weight class, found the
sport all-consuming. “Most sports, you
get done with practice and you can go
and relax,” he says. “In wrestling you can
never lose your focus. After practice you
Sports Summary
VARSITY BOYS WON LOST TIED
Cross Country 14 5 0
Football 5 3 0
Soccer 3 11 3
22 19 3
VARSITY GIRLS
Cross Country 10 6 0
Field Hockey 9 7 0
Soccer 7 7 2
Volleyball 12 3 0
38 23 2
VARSITY TOTAL 60 42 5
JV BOYS WON LOST TIED
Cross Country 10 6 0
Football 8 0 0
Soccer 10 4 2
28 10 2
JV GIRLS
Field Hockey 8 4 3
Soccer 6 7 3
Volleyball 7 7 0
21 18 6
JV TOTAL 49 28 8
GRAND TOTALS 109 70 13
Fall Sports Highlights
An 11-2 record qualified the Big Red
varsity volleyball team for the New
England Tournament for the fifth
consecutive year, where the team lost
a heartbreaker to Hotchkiss in the
semifinal to finish the campaign at
12-3. As a team, the Big Red amassed
221 aces, 495 kills, 149 digs, and 198
blocks. Alie Rusher ’14 was a leader
on a team with multiple standouts,
recording 41 aces, 189 kills, 31 blocks,
and 37 digs. Captain Meg Gildehaus ’13
finished with career totals of 68 aces,
67 digs, and 24 kills.
Taking advantage of its first full
year on the newly christened Bogle-
Lechner Field, the Big Red field hockey
team went 9-7 (6-6 ISL) to earn its
best record since 2002. Emily Bres-
nahan ’13 (11g, 3a) and Lily Bogle ’14
(11g, 1a) led the way offensively, while
Caroline Ferguson ’13 (5g, 8a) was
the rock of the midfield. New goalie
Miller Torrance ’15 kept the team in
every game.
Other successful teams this fall
included the girls (10-6) and boys
(14-5) cross country teams, which
placed third and fourth, respect-
ively in the ISL; the girls soccer team
(7-7-2), which equaled its most wins in
a season since 2000; and the football
team, which won its final four games
to finish the season at 5-3. All-New-
England running backs Richard Brad-
ley ’13 (80 rushes, 662 yards, 11 TDs)
and David De Cotiis ’14 (90 rushes,
688 yards, 11 TDs) provided the best
two-man ground game in the ISL.
Elisabeth Fawcett ’16
KAREN BOBOTAS
are still concerned with making weight
and have to focus and be determined
24 hours a day.”
It’s the addictive nature of the sport,
say many Big Red wrestlers, past and
present, that allows wrestlers to fight
through the pain, finding the endur-
ance to push through each two-minute
period. Jeff King wanted more of the rush
he felt after earning his first pin as a
Third Former. Craig Spivey referred
to grueling workouts as “joyful” for the
pleasure of winning his internal war of
wills. Sam Schloss ’11 stuck with wres-
tling because he craved the rewards of
his hard work. Victor Haug ’08 entered
the sport as a football player looking to
stay in shape and ended up wrestling for
two years at Stanford, explaining that he
simply enjoyed the feeling of winning.
“It might be the most important thing
that I’ve done in my life to teach me how
to prepare myself physically and men-
tally for life’s challenges,” says Haug.
“There’s a saying in wrestling: ‘Once you’ve
wrestled, everything else in life is easy.’”