Long/sappy/personal post incoming, if that's not your jam I don't take offense if you pass on reading this bad boy.
Yesterday was a huge day for me and my youngest son. My youngest is five, he has some sensory issues and is on the spectrum. Mostly he struggles in settings with loud noise and he's shy, and when I say he is shy, he is shy to the point that he won't make eye contact, he won't utter a sound to a strangers, his alert on that stuff, even when myself or his mom try and reassure him it's okay, it's a 10/10 every time.
He's a fantastic kid (obviously I'm biased), more like me than I would ever want to have wished on him before he was born, and like me he's got a ton of passion for the things in his life that he loves.
My birthday is tomorrow, and just on a whim, since his mom was at work and I had never been, I saw a post on IG from the wrestling team on yesterday's meet against Kent State and I got the idea to take him since his mom would be working (ER Nurse), and it was going to be just us at home, I agonized over it for a while asking his mom if she thought it would be worth it (the drive mostly since we live an hour away, the tickets were inconsequential as far as cost), would he hate it, would he hate it so much that it caused a rift between he and I because with the way his brain works he has a recall about situations he hates/doesn't enjoy and he will bring up how much he hated it and it made him angry randomly. It can be a problem, we still can't take him back to his mom's former place of employment, needless to say he was not a fan.
Anyway, this is going to be long enough without his life story, long story slightly shorter, I decided to take him, just he and I, Ohio State, Covelli center, and Buckeye wrestling, it was a huge gamble, but man oh man... HE HAD A BLAST!
The entire event was great, he got a big Ohio State foam finger, he cheered and yelled and got into it and he came out of his shell in a lot of ways I've never seen before.
After the meet (dominant Buckeye W by the way) Logan Stieber walked over near where we were sitting (had great seats 4 rows up from center mat) to talk to a friend of his, after he was finished I asked him if he wouldn't mind taking a photo with my son, he obliged... My son, however, not so keen on it. I apologized to Logan and told him my son is very shy and not socially up to speed on how humans behave, and Logan took it in stride, smiled for the picture and I told him I appreciated it and let him know that he and Nathan Tomasello were the reason I ever even started following Buckeye wrestling religiously. He told me how much he appreciated it and went back about his business. Classy dude, so stoked I got to meet him.
Then coach Ryan came by the same area, he was GREAT. He took a selfie with me, and I let him know how much fun my son and I had, and warned him of the shyness factor and he sat down and looked Isaac right in the eye and asked him if he had a good time, and my son gave a meek little nod, and coach Ryan said "Well I'm glad you enjoyed it, you gotta promise to come back and cheer us on again, you might be a good luck charm for us because we won." That made my son smile.
There's a ton more I could get into here, there was a meet and greet after, got to meet Sammy Sasso, very cool kid, hope he is able to close it out and make some noise on the national stage.
We walked to the Woody and got to look at all the trophies, he made me take a picture of him in front of every single one.
Long story short, this will be a core memory for my youngest son and I and we really owe it to Tom Ryan, the Wrestlebucks, and THE Ohio State University.
They made a fan for life in my boy yesterday.
