Overcome Your Adversities to Become Your Best

By Steve Fraser

June 18, 2010

 

When I started wrestling as an eighth grader at Webb JR High School, in Hazel Park Michigan I was terrible. I was the worst wrestler on my team. The next four years I struggled with many ups and downs in this sport.

 

By the time I became a senior at Hazel Park High, I finally became good enough to win the Michigan state championship.  With that state title, I won a full scholarship to go to the best college in the entire nation - The University of Michigan - to get my education and wrestle.  (What, you don’t all agree?)  You should have seen me…I thought I was one of the roughest, toughest guys around.  “YEAH!  I am going to go to the University of Michigan as a freshman… I was going to make the varsity team - no problem, I was state champ!” 

 

Well, the guy I had to beat to make the varsity team was Mark Johnson (former Head Coach for the University of Illinois).  Mark was a senior, captain of the team and he had a different idea of what was going to happen when he and I wrestled - much different from my idea.  Mark Johnson and I wrestled almost every single day for the first four months of the season and never once, not one time, did I score a single point on him.  He beat the living tar out of me every single day.  You would figure after about 2 months of him beating me up that he might feel sorry for me.  You know, maybe let me score one lousy point on him…No way! 

 

In the classroom I was failing two classes.  A history class and a physiology class… going down for the third count … big fat F’s (failure) all the way up through and including my midterms.  There was no way I thought I could pass these courses.  In fact I am sure my instructors had written me off already…”we won’t see him back”.    I remember calling my mother on the phone, tears in my eyes, the whole shot; “Mom, I’m coming home, (sniff, sniff) I’m failing these two classes and Mark Johnson keeps kicking my butt in the wrestling room”.  I mean I was truly as low as I could be. 

 

But what I learned from getting through all that mess is with me today and I hope will be with me the rest of my life.  What I learned is that, “yes”, Steve Fraser can do anything he wants if he really wants it bad enough.  Now, the only solution I could think of was to get a tutor, which was tough for me to accept.  However, my options were limited so I got a tutor.   We started at square one and he basically taught me; when to study, what to study, how to study properly.  I will tell you… I don’t think I have ever had a comeback like this in the sport of wrestling.  I went from complete failure in these two classes - F’s on all my tests - to A’s on my final exams.  I mean I was in total shock that I could make that dramatic of a comeback.  Needless to say, my teachers were in shock, also.

 

Back in the wrestling room, I will never forget this; I finally scored on Mark Johnson.  I finally took him down.  It was a Friday…. December 15^th…. 3:36 in the afternoon…. arm drag…. I took him down. Two point takedown.  I remember jumping up, “YEAH!”  I was so excited.  Now he probably just slipped on some water or something that was on the mat because he proceeded to beat me up for the next two months too.

 

My point is - not only is it easier for us to learn from our adversities but what we learn from them has a much greater impact and stays with us a lot longer than what we sometimes learn from our successes. Obviously it is no fun to fail but failing can be good because it forces us to change, it forces us to reevaluate, to stretch and grow.   I am totally convinced that because I overcame those obstacles, those setbacks, those adversities, I have achieved a much greater level of success than I would ever have been able to accomplish if I didn’t have those experiences. I can guarantee you that without that freshman year struggle I would have never won an Olympic Gold Medal!

 

When it comes to the struggles, when it comes to making mistakes, when it comes to setbacks, I encourage all of us to look at these difficult times as positive things, as things that can help us get the true success that we may want further down the road.   The more adversity we experience and overcome, the stronger we become. 

 

So, pray hard…pray that God will bless you with all the most tough, grueling, agonizing problems he can find - and you will grow to be stronger then you could ever imagine!

 

Expect To Win