Western Wyoming’s Garrett Ricks scored the final takedown in overtime to win the 125 NJCAA Wrestling Championship, which made him the first 125 champion in school history.

The Mustangs finished fourth overall with a total 116.5 points. The team also placed seven wrestlers who also earned All-American honors.

Every year I learn something new from the Mustangs wrestling team and this season was no different.

Here’s your post tournament thoughts.

Winning Isn’t Everything, It’s the Only Thing

What defines a winner? The number of matches you win? How many points the team scores?

The Mustangs helped define what a winner is for me during the championships this year. There are two moments that stand out from this tournament and they both come from what others on the outside would define as “losing”.

The first comes from Western’s 184 Tyce Raddon who battled his way into the starting lineup this season. He beat out his teammate Andrew Nicholson who is a two-time All-American for the starting job this year.

Raddon ended up finishing third at the tournament and dominated his way through the first rounds of the tournament. What the scoreboard doesn’t tell you about Raddon is how he reacted to losing his semifinals match and coming up short on the goal he worked towards the past two years.

The officiating was questionable and potentially left some points off the board for Raddon, but there was no anger or frustration afterwards. No pouting on the side. He had a positive attitude and was cheering his teammate on just a few minutes later.

Just the match before, an Iowa Central kid lost on what he felt was a questionable call and came off the mat yelling and complaining, cursing his situation instead of moving on.

Regardless of who won the match, Raddon still found a way to win, and it was in his positive response to his circumstances. You can only control what you can control and he did exactly that. He went on to win the consolation bracket, taking third in the 184 division.

That’s the definition of a winner for me.

One last observation from the national tournament comes from Western’s 285 Koby Johnson. He’s another kid who beat out a teammate that was an All-American last year for the starting job. But what you might not know about Johnson is that he missed his first two years with torn knees.

The mental and physical strength to overcome that adversity in and of itself is impressive to me. On top of that, he jumped up to the heavyweight division and took on the challenge as a smaller heavyweight.

Johnson also didn’t see his dreams come true winning the national championship, coming up short in the first few rounds, but from my unique perspective that didn’t matter. He was just as much of a winner off the mat as anyone else was on it. Working through those injuries, earning a starting spot and making it to the national tournament sounds like a major success story.

Handling yourself on and off the mat is what defines a winner. What you make with what you’re given, how you respond to your circumstances and in general just being a good person all attribute to winning in life.

When it comes down to it, winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.