By Ed Piper
Vinny Iudici ("eye-you-di-chee") is an assistant coach for the La Jolla wrestling team. He is from Brooklyn, New York, and proudly wears a cap bearing "New York" on it. These remarks came during the Vista Bash for freshman wrestlers at Vista High Sat., Dec. 16.
Coming into a meet, which is the first one they've (freshmen or other beginning wrestlers) ever done, are there a little jitters? What are they going through?
There are some jitters today. This is their first time going live, wrestling against someone they've never wrestled before. So, it's just those nerves. But just standing toe-to-toe, taking a shot.
They've done a lot of practice by now. What is the reality, the break-through when the match starts in a real competition?
The reality is that you're not going up against the same training partner that you see everyday, so you're losing a little comfortability there. You're wrestling a complete stranger. And now we're here, we have all eyes on us, and I think this is their time in the spotlight. Having all eyes on you for the first time can be a little challenging.
You guys have Leo, Isabella, Harrison... Some of that is going on at this meet? They're looking around, it's kind of a big environment.
Yeah, it's a lot more exposure than our usual wrestling room. Because in the room, nobody is really watching them except the two coaches that are there. It's a little different here. After you take off your warmup, it's a little colder here than it is in the wrestling room. It was always like that for me in high school. It's just that reality, I'm here, I'm in a tournament match, I can't get too comfortable here as I do in the wrestling room. So I think that just plays a game on them mentally. A lot of them think that this is the end of the world, but it's not.
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