A Guest Post from Jared Ellis

Jared Ellis is an alumnus of Ursinus (class of '11), a former wrestler for us, and a close friend of Alex Blank's. He wrote a short piece about Blank's win at the Centennial Conference tournament, and I'm posting it here because it's probably the best thing you'll read all week. Thanks, Jared.

I cried when Alex Blank won his first Centennial title. I know, I know, men don’t cry and all that jazz but I cry a lot when it comes to wrestling. I cried when I lost, I cried when I won, I cried when I practiced. I cried all the time. Call me a baby. Call me whatever you want, but I’ll gladly defend those tears.

I recruited Alex. The first time that he stepped on the Ursinus Campus, I was there waiting for him. I shook his parents' hands, I toured him around campus, he slept in my room that night. I took him out that night and he refused to do anything “bad.” It was a fast forward to everything to come.

The saying goes that character is what you do when nobody else is watching. Blank has done the right thing every minute of every day for the last four years just to win a title. I know hard workers, and I know talented wrestlers but none of them can compare to the consistency that Blank has brought to the sport. If it is possible to deserve anything, Blank deserved his Centennial title and his ticket to nationals…But if you ask him it isn’t about deserving anything.

Tom Brands, an Olympian, once said that it isn’t what you deserve. It’s what you earn. Blank has earned this bid to the big show, the finals, the big house. He has done the right thing since he was in grade school. Day after day, he was in the gym, or running, or eating right, or studying hard. I’ve never seen anybody earn a title like Blank did.

So when I saw him come into his own as a wrestler, as an adult, as a man, I cried. I saw him come to life on a mat during a single match and wrestle like I had never seen him wrestle before. He opened up, let emotion take over his wrestling rather than technique or habit. I watched him push his opponent to the mat instead of letting himself be pushed around and I couldn’t even cheer. I walked behind the bleachers to compose myself because I had never been more moved by wrestling than I had during his finals match. It’ll be hard for any sport to move me as much as that match did.

Blank hugged me after he won and I had never felt so important for doing nothing, ever. Anybody can say they were there, or they helped him train, or they helped him cut, but the fact is that Blank earned it. Nobody else did.