Luke Hogle '07

            For as long as I can remember, Wrestling has had a very important and central role in my life.  From local tournaments in grade school to the regional and national tournaments with my teammates in high school, Wrestling has been the activity to which I devoted more of my free time than any other.  It was for the love of the sport that I decided to continue competing at the collegiate level, and for this reason I am a member of the Cornell Varsity Wrestling Team.
            Being a member on an athletics team is a huge time commitment even if one is only doing the minimal requirements of going to practice and events.  There are a myriad of other activities one can become involved in, such as recruiting, fundraising, promoting events, and organizing team get-togethers and mixers with other teams. I have tried to become as involved in all of these activities as possible, in an attempt to make my experience, and that of my teammates, all the more enjoyable.
            Wrestling practices and even events can sometimes seem to drag out for hours on end to the point where just being done and going home becomes the primary goal in everyone’s mind.  It is in situations like this that I find my leadership skills the most useful.  While I am not one of the official captains of the team, I would consider myself one of the leaders, and I try to lead by example and with encouragement.  When practices get long and hard it is amazing what a positive attitude can do for the moral of not only me, but those around me as well.  Just by acting like I am excited to be there working out, and offering an encouraging word or compliment here and there, the whole tempo in the room can change immediately.  I find it amazing how infectious a positive attitude can be, and how large an impact it can have on enjoyment of the activity, even if the good attitude was not genuine to begin with.  It is in this setting that the old saying “fake it ‘till you make it” is very appropriate.  Just acting like I am having a good time will usually lead to just that, even if I was miserable and couldn’t wait to be done in the first place.
            In addition to leading during practice and events, I also try to do the most I can outside of the requirements. I am one of the team’s representatives to the Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), whose goal it is to alert teams of important issues affecting athletes, and also to get athletes more involved in supporting each other and to create a general fellowship among Cornell’s athletes.  I have helped with several SAAC events, including the annual SAAC food drive and date auction, and the Cornell Cup, a friendly competition designed to get teams more involved in supporting other teams. 
            I have also taken it upon myself to get involved with the recruiting process by showing recruits around campus and answering any questions they might have.  The annual fundraiser the Wrestling Team does for Hospice Care was another activity I was able to help with.  I helped to organize groups of team members to notify all of the fraternities and sororities on campus of our fundraiser, which resulted in a sellout crowd in Newman Arena and raised over ten thousand dollars for Hospice Care.
            This year was very similar to past ones, in the leadership I employed and the skills I learned.  I am learning to hone my leadership skills by trial and error and becoming much more effective at putting my skills to work.  But, there was one key difference this year that allowed me to gain a different type of insight into how to be a good leader.  While the season was in full swing I was unfortunately injured and I found myself sidelined.  It was very hard to stay positive when I was unable to participate at the same level as the rest of my teammates, but I decided to view my injury as a challenge, a mere obstacle to overcome.  At first it was hard to keep a high level of involvement, but I made up my mind to be a constant and encouraging presence, even if I could do no more.  I don’t know if my efforts made much of a difference, but the opportunity to watch from the sidelines made it even more apparent to me that a positive attitude is one of the most, if not the most, important qualities a leader can exhibit.  By watching and not participating I was able to see how quickly negative attitudes can tear a group apart, and how effectively just one strong positive attitude can turn it right around and create an atmosphere of unity and enjoyment.  It is amazing how the aura one person exudes can be so infectious, whether it is good or bad.
           Thru the new revelations and the reinforcement of the leadership skills I already use, I believe that this year has been very useful in showing me how to become a more effective leader as well as helping me understand how my attitude can have a drastic impact on those around me.  By using what I have learned I believe that I will be a much better leader and the experience I have gained this year will be enable me to handle more adverse situations much more effectively.