Cam Riley '20

(From the Spring 2020 Bulletin).

Cam Riley '20 came to Brooks as a third-former intent on trying a lot of different activities. He wasn't focused on sports — he says he didn't play sports much as a child and he's never really been into sports — but he engaged in the school's afternoon activities requirements and discovered a new love: wrestling.

"I played thirds soccer as a third-former, then I tried squash and then I rowed crew in the spring," he says. "As a fourth-former, I did soccer and crew again. But, that's when I also tried wrestling: [Former faculty Pat] Hitschler came in to coach, they were rebuilding the team, and they needed a 106-pound kid for that weight class."

Riley says that Hitschler "tracked him down" and asked Riley if he wanted to pick up wrestling. "I told him I'd think about it because I really was down to try something new," he says. "That's what I've done here. I've tried sailing and tennis and community service, all kinds of stuff. I was pretty excited to wrestle also."

Brooks gave Riley the support and environment he needed to branch out and try new things, and he's quick to recognize that. "The coaches here really encourage you to try new stuff," he says. "Look at this year's wrestling team: Nobody's wrestled before high school. This is the team where they need kids to be willing to try new things, and the coaches understand that. The entire community in general here, they all want students to try new things, and I think that's really important at Brooks."

Riley showed up to wrestling practice as a fourth-former and immediately found himself in a new world. "I honestly didn't like it at first," he says. "I thought it was super hard, and it's not really like anything else you ever do. It's not like playing sports with a ball. You're just running moves on someone. It's the closest I've ever gotten to being in a fight."

"But honestly, that was also the reason I stuck with it," Riley continues. "I realized after my fourth-form year that wrestling taught me to be tough. It got me in good shape. In wrestling, you use all these muscles that you never really thought you'd use. My first year, I was sore in places I didn't even know I could be sore!"

As he matured and learned more about the sport, Riley took away other lessons from wrestling. "Through my fifth-form year and this year, wrestling has helped me a lot with life," he says. "One thing I've found is that wrestling teaches you how to take responsibility for yourself," he continues. "When you lose a basketball game, there are a lot of reasons why your team might have had a bad game. When you lose a wrestling match, it's just you versus another human being, and on that day, they were tougher. Losing a wrestling match is the worst feeling in the world. But winning a wrestling match is the best feeling in the world."

"The coaches here really encourage you to try new stuff"

Now, Riley is a sixth-form captain for the wrestling team, and he's learned a lot about how to lead a team of athletes who are, as he once was, new to the sport. "It's exciting for me, because for my entire life I wasn't the most athletic kid, and now suddenly I'm captain of a team," he begins. "I see it as a good opportunity: What I think I bring to the table as a captain is that I know how to help kids stick with the sport, to help them see that they're going to learn something in the end that's going to make them better athletes and, I think, better people. I can help them be prepared for matches, and I can encourage them to keep working hard."

He's seen success in his own career, as he's moved from the 106- pound weight class to his current weight class of 132 pounds. "There's this one kid from St. Mark's School that I've wrestled four times now," he says. "We've gone 2–2 in some crazy matches. My matches with him have definitely been intense." Last year at the Graves-Kelsey tournament, Riley took fourth place and qualified for the New England Championships. He ended up winning at 126 after bumping up two weight classes, and he also was awarded the fastest pin award that year. This year, he notched a third-place finish at the ISL championships after being seeded fourth, and ended up losing to the top-seeded wrestler at New Englands. An athlete who hadn't even wrestled until his fourth-form year, Riley notes, ended up competing at the New England Championships and captaining the team.

Riley doesn't just appreciate wrestling for what it's taught him and for the opportunity it gave him to lead. He also loves the sense of community and camaraderie that stretches throughout the sport. "You get a special connection with other people who wrestle," he says. "Nobody really knows what wrestling is like besides wrestlers. Even if I'm just walking around in my Brooks wrestling shirt, someone will come up to me. It helps form connections and conversation, and I love that aspect of the sport as well."