Handled with class all the way

First, the OW award for the Dallastown Invitational will be named in his memory. And the fact that his good friend Jon Childress won this award a couple weeks ago was very fitting. Second was the purchase of new singlets, styled after the ones worn by Penn State and with Sweitzer's initials as the lone item on the back.

The final, and most significant, is the establishment of the Sweitzer scholarship which will be given to a Dallastown wrestler based on criteria yet to be determined. This will help future Wildcat wrestlers pursue higher education. The original goal of $5,000 was easily surpassed and is near $8,000, hopefully to keep increasing.

If this scholarship is truly to reflect Sweitzer the wrestler, then you can bet it will go to a competitor who leaves it all out on the mat. Sweitzer was as hard a worker as you'll ever see on the mat. I watched him take some hard losses early in his career. But you just knew he was going to get better because he wasn't going to allow them to get him down. And it was neat to see him reach the district semifinals in senior year as a high-water mark of his career.

Kudos to the Dallastown program for a simple but moving presentation just following the junior high match. Watching Childress and Clay Gable give Sweitzer's parents their own singlet along with several other mementos brought more than a few tears to the eyes I saw in the Dallastown crowd.

But congrats aren't limited to the Dallastown side of the gym. The South Western wrestlers, coaches and fans demonstrated how tight the wrestling community is. All the wrestlers were wearing the shirts sold as a fundraiser for the scholarship fund; many fans were wearing white to support the 'white out' Dallastown wanted to do as part of the celebration.

It was class all around, something I believe gets overlooked in a tough physical sport like wrestling. It will be an evening that I will always remember once my my days of covering the YAIAA are over.