Growing up, my dad never wanted me to wrestle. In his high school years, he ran the hallway as a hockey player alongside wrestlers wrapped in garbage bags and puking consistently. He never wanted his son to go through that. Then in the fifth grade, a football coach suggested I pick up a new sport. That's where my story began.

Moving forward, I became very successful in the sport. I was able to travel to many new places and wrestle kids from all around the world. My wall in my bedroom is now covered in trophies and medals and plagues from the sport.

Jump into high school. I attended Blair Academy, a school in Blairstown, New Jersey, known for the program and the type of athletes they turn out. That's where my eyes really opened up. Every day of the week the wrestlers were steered clear of because we sucked every ounce of water out of us and still pushed each other in the wrestling room. So that's when people asked why the hell would we do that to ourselves.

I asked the same thing. Then Dec. 3, 2011, rolled around. I was 30 seconds into my sophomore campaign when I was taken by one arm and tossed illegally over the head body of my opponent. My head hit the mat, and I was immediately unconscious. Came to be that I had severely broken my neck and had an extremely severe concussion and was very lucky to be able to even walk. So that's where my story ends. So you ask, why did I wrestle when I understood the risks? You see numerous stories of tremendous wrestlers getting severely injured on the mat and keep coming back for more. So here's why.

Wrestling makes you more self-aware. At the end of the day we, as athletes, are the only ones that can truly push ourselves to our farthest capacities. We don't have to cut weight. We choose to cut the weight because we know how to push our bodies past that pain barrier.

Wrestling builds friendships. I'm still close with a lot of my opponents. I remember wrestling a match against a kid that wrestled me in the state finals the previous year, and everyone in the gym stopped to watch the show. It was a battle until the end, and we were able to hug it out after the final whistle. But in the middle of the match we were more than enemies. The friendships you build with workout partners, teammates, and opponents, is incomparable against any other sport -- because we understand what work goes into to being successful.

Wrestling makes you grow up, and grow up fast. You're tossed out there by yourself against one other person. You control your destiny. You control everything that goes on in a match. Your coaches can give you tips, but it's your task to complete it. My coach in high school didn't say much during a match. He didn't need to. We were trusted, and he knew he gave us the tools to go out and succeed. We just needed to take it.

But the most important thing, wrestling makes everything else in life seem easy. I find myself in daily struggles, but then I look back in my life and think, "I could be in a rubber suit right now cutting 20-30 pounds," because we've all been there. We could be in a 100-degree room, dripping in sweat, going on hour three, well past our healthy body capacities. Wrestling teaches you to overcome the daily struggles, because you remember waking up at 4 a.m. to go to a tournament. You remember the time you feel just short in an overtime match. You remember every time you told yourself you were done with this sport, but you still kept going. You remember every single time you got questions on why you do it.

So in the future, I leave it up to my children to decide if they want to wrestle. Wrestling is not easy. No one will ever say it is. But wrestling made me a lot of who I am. Wrestling made my back story. Wrestling is the part of that defines every wrestle. That's why you wrestle.