It’s not easy to gain nine pounds in a single day. It requires a bit of focus and dedication to make it happen. I did it on Thanksgiving Day of my Plebe year at West Point.

I had reported to West Point at the start of July that year. As a Plebe, you were under what is known as, the Fourth Class System, which prescribed everything you could and couldn’t do. One part of the system specified how to eat your meals in the dining hall. As a Plebe, you were required to eat meals while sitting ”at attention.” You sat on the edge of your chair, with back erect and your hands in your lap. Your “beady eyeballs” focused on the West Point crest at the top of your plate. As you ate, you put a small bite of food on your fork, transfer the bite to your mouth, put the fork back on your plate, put your hand back in your lap, and only then start to chew your food. Once you swallowed the bite, you could repeat the process. Of course you were in trouble for taking too big of a bite, not chewing your food enough, starting to chew before your hand was back in your lap…. you get the idea. Plebes tended to stay a bit hungry.

Now, if you were a member of an Intercollegiate team, you sat at a table with the other members of your team. The upperclassmen at your table let you eat like a regular person, fostering team unity, while also serving as something of a reward to the Plebes who made the team.

In September it was announced they were holding Plebe tryouts for the Wrestling team, and if interested, report to the gym on a certain day. In high school, I’d wrestled for four years and did well enough to Letter, but that was about it. Wrestling in college had been the last thing on my mind. Given the Fourth Class system, I decided to give it a shot and reported to the gym on the given day. They paired you with other Plebes your size and you wrestled. If you won, you came back the next day for a second match. The first day, I pinned the guy I wrestled. I came back the next day and amazingly, pinned my opponent that day as well. Evidently, I found food a powerful motivator. Two weeks later, they notified me I made the team. Life was about to get better.

On October 1st, after three months of eating at attention as a beanhead, I reported to the Corps Squad (Intercollegiate) wrestling tables, and started eating like a human being. This was great, except for one small problem. For any of you who have been around wrestlers, you know we are almost constantly trying to cut weight. At the time, my natural weight was about 174 pounds, but my wrestling weight class was 157. My weight was down a bit as a Plebe, but getting to 157 still meant dieting most of the time. You can see my problem – although I was finally able to eat normally, now I couldn’t eat as much because I was trying to cut weight. I had created my own Faustian dilemma.

Time passed and I was cutting the weight. By mid-November I was around 157, sometimes a little above, sometimes a little below. Thanksgiving Day arrived and we had practice in the morning. I weighed out after practice at 156 1/2 pounds. Coach told us to take it easy, and not overdo it. I heard what he said, but it must not have sunk in.

Later, our Thanksgiving meal was served and I ate, and ate, and ate some more. That night, I was still hungry and ate leftovers and snacks. Friday came and boom, boom, boom, I was like a locomotive engine needing to be stoked with more and more food. I pigged out at both breakfast and lunch. That afternoon, we had practice and unfortunately coach was there for our weigh in before practice. He put the scale at 157 and it didn’t budge. He slid the weight right, and there was no movement. Further right… further right…Finally, at 166 pounds the scale balanced out. Coach looked at me. I looked back, wisely choosing to say nothing. He started to ream me out, then stopped and just said “go.”

I chuckle when I tell the story now. I have no idea why I went on the eating binge. My guess is there was some mental reaction to being away from my family and home on Thanksgiving for the first time, but I don’t really know for sure. I’d certainly gained 3 or 4 pounds overnight while wrestling, but 9+ pounds was something new for me.

As a Plebe, even with cutting weight, sitting at Corps Squad tables was infinitely better than sitting at regular company tables. For that, I’ll always be grateful to the sport of wrestling. It also gave me a piece of trivia I occasionally pull out for laughs – I mean, how many people can say they gained 9 pounds in a single day?

Addendum:

– I wrestled in a couple of matches my Plebe year, but mostly I served as a practice partner for varsity guys. As a Yearling (Sophomore) I decided not to rejoin the wrestling team. I knew I’d never really be a good wrestler at the college level, and there were many other, and perhaps better, ways to spend my time.

– My name was evidently captured on a list of West Point Wrestlers somewhere in an archive. About 5 years ago, I started receiving monthly updates on the status of the current Army Wrestling team. The current teams look much bigger and better than anything I remember.