Harrison Hoffmann '18 Recruiting Profile

This was written in the summer of 2016, before starting my high school junior season.

I guess for me wrestling was kind of entrenched in me since I was a little boy. My parents were from Iowa, my Dad wrestled in high school and his 3 brothers wrestled, one at the University of Nebraska. My Dad went to Iowa State and stayed close with the program, my Mom went to the University of Iowa. They always tell me that during the 5 years from 1982-1987 they did not miss any Iowa/Iowa State dual meets. We have lots of wrestling artifacts in our house.

I grew up wearing Iowa State wrestling clothes, my Dad hates the Hawkeyes. To this day I am an Iowa State fan but I like watching wrestling of all kinds, I follow my cousins and such as they have wrestled from little kids through high school, mostly in Iowa and Nebraska.

Our family moved from Iowa to Wisconsin to Illinois and finally to Georgia, where I was born. I started wrestling in 2^nd grade, my Dad volunteered to help coach the Mill Creek High School Youth program. I was not a very good wrestler, I was timid, scared, and was that kid that threw up before his match. I benefitted greatly from having EJ Pasteur as my Youth coach. He was a Pan Am Games champion when he was wrestling for the Army and I was lucky to have his son in our program. We always felt special to have such a great man and leader to look up to and who paid attention to us. Those years of youth wrestling where I never missed a practice, I started going to tournaments even though I always lost, those years where I questioned whether it was all worth it, those are the years that have molded me to the man I am today.

I learned that if you love something like I loved wrestling; you stick with it, you don’t always (or sometimes very seldom) succeed, but you also realize the passion is to learn and to compete, AND to eventually get better. And I did get a little better. Instead of getting beat every week-end I started to win a few matches, not tournaments but matches. I started to enjoy helping coach the young kids at practice and to be at their side during matches. I went from being that kid that was scared to death of going on the mat, to the kid who was encouraging the younger kids that were now the ones who were scared.

Things changed for me mentally in 7^th and 8^th grade, I made it to the kid’s state tournament both years, I won very few if any matches, but that is when it clicked, I realized that if I wanted to be one of those “really good” wrestlers I needed to work harder, and commit to the sport like I had done with my school work and with my church community. After I lost my second match in state my 8^th grade year, I told my Dad that I was tired of losing and wanted to do whatever it took to stop losing. He agreed to give me every possible chance of reaching my goals.

Starting during the end of my 8^th grade year I started working out at The Compound, the wrestling club that was so full of state champions it was very intimidating at first, how could I compete? But then I realized I was not there to compete, I was there to learn, and grow, both my skills and just in how to be a man. At the end of the day that’s what wrestling is, it teaches you about everything you will need later in life; set your goals, commit to succeed, work your tail off, accept your lumps and bruises and wins and losses, and be happy you have been given the chance to be able to succeed.

I have worked to get better almost year-round for going on 3 years now, since that Spring of my 8^th grade year. From Greco/Freestyle practice with the club in the Spring, to working with the high school team in early summer (weight-lifting and summer duals), to Freestyle wrestling tournaments with the club team in late summer, and back to club Folk style wrestling in the Fall, all in preparation for high school workouts and competition in the Winter.

As a high school freshman I started out wrestling JV and did very well, after a few weeks I got the varsity spot and never gave it up. I was selected as one of the varsity team captains. My HS coach always said I was a quiet guy but I spoke loudly with my work efforts in practice and on the mat. I did not do that well as a freshman in varsity competition. I was happy but not satisfied, I committed to do better the next year.

The next year I once again did the same year-round routine. My sophomore year I was again a team captain. I wrestled varsity all year, had a winning record, and missed out on going to state by about 10 seconds and 1 point in my final match at Sectionals (I ended up with my 2 Sectional loses being to the eventual 1^st and 6^th place finishers at State). My year ended with disappointment but once again, that determination grew even stronger.

So for the 3^rd year in a row I put in the extra work in the offseason. A bright spot was I finished 3^rd in Georgia State and 5^th in the Southeast Regionals in Freestyle, I was so pumped, I was starting to see some results against some really good kids.

My goal right now is to work as hard as a can, for as long as I can, find the hardest place to work out and the hardest wrestlers to scrimmage against. “If you are going to be the best then you have to wrestle the best.”

Aside from wrestling I am a pretty simple and boring guy I guess. I don’t go out and I don’t hang around a questionable crowd, I prefer to stay fully committed to spending time with my family and friends. I want to have a strong connection to my Church (I went through Catholic Confirmation in the Spring), and I have taken as many Honors and AP classes at school as I can. I love to do good at school, less than perfect grades are not acceptable to me. I am self-driven, I feel I have been successful at what I have done in life so far, that one thing that is a constant work in progress is my wrestling.

I learned at a young age and have maintained a thought process where my goals in wrestling were not to win a youth championship (but to compete hard and grow in skill), or a freestyle or folk style tournament (once again the goal is to get better), or to win a state championship in high school (even though this would be nice it is not a “final” goal). I would like to wrestle in college, I would like to do well and be successful on the mat, but the goal continues to be to grow as a man and get better at my craft. At the end of my wrestling career my goal is to have worked as hard I could, reach as many of my goals as possible, and become the best wrestler and person that I possibly can.

It’s pretty simple really, this life thing is all about tackling the worst life throws at you, and using that challenge to become the best at whatever you chose to do.