We can endure anything and adapt and pivot and change.

Wrestling gave us that ability.

I would say nothing in life has impacted me more than the things wrestling has taught me in terms of self-reflection, resilience.

Toughness. Some guys have it, some guys don't.

Adversity, 100% how to pick myself up and be a man after I failed.

And everything that has shaped my life and where I'm at today would not be there without the values and basically the lessons I've learned through the sport of wrestling.

For me, wrestling saved my life because it allowed me to focus and channel my energy.

We're fortunate if you wrestle because if you wrestle, natural talent helps, but it's 5% of the ingredient. It pales in comparison to heart and technique and effort.

It humbled me, taught me humility.

Nothing can humble you more than wrestling.

I think it's the learning to adapt, right?

You learn, you learn how to adapt, you learn how to solve problems.

You know, if I look back my, you learn how to solve problems.

You know, if I look back my time, I spent wrestling, if it gave me one thing more than anything else, it's the toughness.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Wrestling Change My Life podcast.

It's your host, Ryan Warner.

Our guest today is University of Illinois RTC coach Brian Medellin.

We dive into the NCAA tournament, the upcoming freestyle season.

We also covered the death of the late legend, Bufasar Sityev, who we covered in our audio documentary Slaying Sotiv.

Of course, in that documentary, Brandon Slai, the focus is about his upset over Sotiv at the 2000 Olympics.

But episode two of that series is an entire deep dive on the great Sotiv's life.

So I wanted to touch on that.

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