Nerves of Steel by Gavin

Nerves of Steel by Gavin - May 2018 Scholarship Essay

Volunteering has been something I have been apart of for many years starting from the age of 9 in the 4th grade. However it did not have the largest impact on my life, at least not as large of an impact as the more recent event that occurred during the sophomore year of my high school career. The wrestling team and I took part in an event called the Pan-AM Olympic Qualifiers, our jobs were to assist the wrestlers and the staff as much as possible. When presented with a figure as large as the ones we dealt with to stay nerve free is rough, if not just about impossible, so learning to steel our nerves to assist was something I'll never forget.
Wrestlers all over the world came to participate in the Pan-AM games being held on Frisco, TX during the year of 2016. Those wrestlers all being top athletes that have trained for a lot of their life, if not all of it to reach the top, the pinnacle of their sport at the Olympics. It was a surreal feeling seeing those we respect and look up to wrestling in front of our eyes, the amount of times the volunteer wrestlers got awestruck is unimaginable to count. All this excitement, yet we still had a job to do and were determined to see it through because of our respect and admiration for these individuals.
Holding buckets containing the wrestlers items, searching for the upcoming wrestler because his match was up soon, setting up luxuries, and finally running water bottles. These are the tasks we were given, though tedious we did them with all our heart because we not only look up to these athletes, but can relate to them on some level of ground. Athletes of all level put their heart in soul into the sport they play, whether you go down a legend or otherwise, as long as one puts in effort to achieve greatness they will accumulate a status. Therefor no matter who we were supposed to escort or help it was a very nerve racking event.
Many of the volunteer wrestlers knew to keep their excitement to a minimum so as to not discomfort the wrestler of higher status and fame. This, was not an easy feat because the feeling of meeting someone you adore or look up to can cause excitement as bad as one finding out about a field trip causing them to skip a long and boorish school day. The butterflies never stop, but it's important to control it and if you can't you get different jobs that didn't entail interacting with said Olympic qualifier wrestlers. Therefore to get the cool jobs a volunteer would have to hide their excitement to the extent that it didn't show an extreme smile or crack the voice.