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Wrestler gets standing ovation on first loss
McCOOK, Neb. -- An undefeated junior high wrestler lost his first match and he couldn't be happier.
The crowd was on its feet and cheering Dec. 7 when Landon Towne, an eighth grader on the McCook Junior High wrestling team, allowed Brady Lewis, a seventh grade wrestler with special needs at Cambridge to pin him and win the match. It was Towne's first loss of the season.
"It was so amazing, he was so happy," Towne said. "I felt so good about it."
And others did, too. "I thought, oh my gosh, he's going to let him win. And chills went down my spine," said Jason Benson, Cambridge's assistant wrestling coach who was at the meet. "Brady was smiling from ear to ear. It was just amazing. Landon showed everyone that's it's okay to take a loss for sportsmanship and it takes someone with a big heart to do that."
Brady's mom, Michelle Lewis, was also at the meet and said her son was ecstatic about the win. "I was bawling, it was heartwarming to see," she said, adding that the coach and kids at Cambridge have always been protective of her son.
Brady was getting frustrated as he wasn't getting any mat time at the meets, but being pinned within seconds, said Coach Benson. So he asked Towne before the meet that he didn't care if he won, but just to give him a little time to wrestle.
Towne gave him mat time, and more. "I made him work for it a little, he took me down the first two times. Then in the third period, I could tell he was trying to do a half nelson so I went with it and let him pin me. It felt good to let him win, I was tearing up a little," he said.
Other wrestlers then followed suit, with Lewis winning two other matches, against Dakota Coppedge of Southern Valley, who told Benson it was time for Lewis to get first place, and fellow Cambridge wrester, Brandon Horwart.
"It was a powerful moment, what Landon did," said McCook wrestling coach, Richard Smock. As the meet wasn't that big, the loss won't count too much against his record, he said, but "That loss on his record is more of an accomplishment."
Towne couldn't agree more and said it was more about motivating Brady than anything else.
"I love everything about the sport of wrestling and now he'll be excited to wrestle, instead of thinking he's going to be beat every time," he said.
And as far as his record goes, "I don't care if it counts or not. It's the best loss I'm most proud of."
A video of the match already has 15,000 views and can be watched at http://on.fb.me/1J7bmGT