Remembrance:

Uncle Al

My name is Eli Felts and this is a small remembrance of my uncle, who was a high school wrestler and a big supporter of mine when I was a wrestler.

            I started wrestling in 7^th grade.  My Dad was a former high school wrestler and had been encouraging me to try it out.  I was leaning toward going out but the real clincher came at a family gathering shortly before our season started.  My Dad and My Uncle Al, also a high school wrestler, had found some wrestling on TV and started getting into stories about wrestling.  It was evident the amount of respect they had for wrestlers and I decided that I wanted to be someone that my Dad and Uncle Al had so much respect for.  After a broken arm and coming close to quitting a couple of times I started having a lot of success.  Al and my Dad always shared the joy of my success.  Although Al lived far away and couldn’t attend a lot of matches he was always eager to find out how my seasons were going.  At Christmas time we would always bring tapes of my matches for Al to watch.  A couple of times our team traveled close enough to Al’s home for him to attend, and he was always overjoyed to get to see me.  He always told me throughout high school that if I made it to state he would drop whatever he had going and come down to watch.  When I won a wrestleback at sectionals to qualify for state last year one of the best parts was calling Al to tell him.  Him and my aunt Pam were both overjoyed to hear the news and I remember Al saying, “so you’re going to the big dance, huh.”  State was an incredible experience and seeing how proud of me Al and my Dad were was by far the most rewarding part.  I had accomplished what I set out to do when I started wrestling.  When it was all over I decided to not continue wrestling in college, which disappointed both Al and Dad a little bit but we still enjoyed talking about wrestling together.  When I returned to Al’s deer hunting camp this year it didn’t take long for him to start bragging me up to all the guys.  Unfortunately, our reminiscing was short-lived.  On Nov. 21, 2004 Al and 7 other members of our hunting party were shot.  Al and 5 others did not survive.  Al will always be missed and remembered as part of our wrestling community.