Snacks

This week’s Snacks takes a stroll back into history — back to a time when wrestling was the most popular organized sport in Ancient Greece, and when wrestlers were widely viewed as the most complete athletes on the planet.

When the Olympic Games began in 776 BC, wrestling quickly became the premier event. According to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and their historical archives on Olympia, wrestling was introduced in 708 BC and soon became the final and most prestigious athletic contest of the Games. The IOC notes that wrestling “occupied a place of honor” and was “the defining event of the festival.”

Why did wrestling rise to the top?

Because in ancient Greek culture, wrestling embodied arete (ἀρετή)—the pursuit of full human excellence, a concept of virtue and fulfillment that meant living up to one’s full potential. Greek historian Pausanias, in Description of Greece, wrote that Olympic wrestling was revered because it required mastery of both physical and mental disciplines. The British Museum, which houses Greek athletic artifacts, emphasizes that wrestlers were seen as the best-conditioned athletes due to the sport’s demand for “strength, balance, quickness, and tactical skill.”

To be a champion in wrestling, an athlete needed:

• Strength to overpower opponents

• Speed and agility, described by Plato as essential in his work Laches

• Endurance, since matches could last until one opponent conceded

• Balance and body control, documented in athletic training manuals by the physician Galen

• Tactical intelligence, which Aristotle referenced when he described wrestling as an art of leverage and timing

• Mental composure, performing in front of thousands at Olympia

Greek sculptors (such as those who created the famous statue The Wrestlers, now in the Uffizi Gallery) used wrestlers as the physical model for male perfection. Poets like Pindar wrote victory odes praising Olympic wrestlers as heroes worthy of myth.

Wrestling even played the deciding role in the Ancient Pentathlon. According to the Perseus Digital Library and entries on ancient athletics from Oxford Classical Dictionary, the pentathlon wasn’t settled until the wrestling match — making wrestling the ultimate test of the all-around athlete. Winning the wrestling event meant you weren’t just skilled… you were the best overall athlete at the Games.

The social rewards were enormous. As noted by historian Nigel Spivey in The Ancient Olympics, wrestlers who won Olympic titles received lifelong benefits: free meals, front-row civic seating, public pensions, and even citywide tax exemptions. Their names were carved into stone, recited in poetry, and preserved for generations.

To ancient Greece, a great wrestler embodied more than athletic skill. He represented discipline, intelligence, courage, and physical mastery — the complete human ideal. And wrestling wasn’t just for the athletes—it mattered to the philosophers too. For example, Plato in his Laws emphasized wrestling as an exercise in sophrosynē—a blending of power with self-control and dignity. Meanwhile, Socrates (as presented by Xenophon) regarded both wrestling and running as meritorious and essential to the ideal of a proper life.

Wrestling wasn’t just part of the Olympics.
It was the main event—the headline show—and the clearest test of the complete athlete. In the ancient world, the wrestling champion wasn’t simply strong; he was seen as the closest thing to the fully developed human being.

In short: wrestling in the ancient Olympics was the climactic event because it symbolized total mastery—strength, endurance, balance, strategy, and self-control fused into one.

When you participate in the sport of wrestling today, remember: you’re entering a tradition older than recorded history — the same test of strength, discipline, and spirit that crowned champions in the ancient Olympic Games. To be a wrestler, is to live up to one’s full potential. You join a lineage of athletes and thinkers who believed wrestling revealed a person’s true character. Every time you take the mat, you participate in the oldest athletic ritual on the planet.

👋 Enjoying this post?
👉 Subscribe to the newsletter here
— stories, insights, and interviews every week.

Growth Bite

This week's Growth Bite comes from ancient Greek philosophy.

Aristotle taught that excellence isn’t something you achieve in a single moment — it’s something you become through repetition. In the Nicomachean Ethics, he explained that virtue is formed by doing the right actions over and over, until they shape who you are.

The popular paraphrase by Will Durant captures it well: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”

The message is simple and timeless: excellence isn’t built in one big performance — it’s built in the small, consistent choices you make every day.

Community Treat

This week's Community Treat comes from Willie Saylor, who broke the news about high school senior Jax Forrest potentially competing for Oklahoma State in the second semester: