Get to Know Kobe Prior
Kobe Prior is the winner of the first RBS&HF $10,000 scholarship. Photo Courtesy of Kobe Prior
We’d like to help you get to know our $10,000 scholarship recipient, Kobe Prior. Here is a selection answers from his scholarship application form.
What does wrestling mean to you?
Coach is a broken record with the phrase, “once you have wrestled, everything in life is easy.” Because of wrestling I have been able to hold myself to a higher standard in all aspects of life. Nothing is more difficult than controlling portions of food whilst delivering maximum effort at practice, day in and day out. Nothing is harder than delivering that effort day in and day out and having the patience to see the payoff. Our generation is plagued with the lust for instant gratification and wrestling is a panacea for that disease.
When has wrestling helped you overcome adversity?
During my freshmen year I faced a rude awakening: high school wrestling was a different, beast especially in a “man’s weight class” at 152 pounds. I took my lumps—my many lumps—and got sick of my coach [Todd McMenimen] telling me to keep it up and my time would come. I kept losing despite being the hardest worker in the room. I was especially disheartened when I came so close to winning my first match at the Rocky Mountain Invitational at Pagosa. I lost to a Pueblo Centennial Junior in a close match, getting rolled through in a Peterson in the final seconds. My mental fortitude was shaken if not cracked, I thought about giving up, but my coach’s lessons and sayings stuck with me: hard work pays off; once you wrestle, everything in life is easy, and your time will come. The following match, I won by technical fall and it would be my first-ever high school win. I had a weight lifted off of my back. That year, I placed sixth at regionals and continued the hard work and perseverance. The skills I implemented were simple but effective: putting my head down and grinding, practicing hard/not going through the motions, and being open to criticism in order to elevate my wrestling. This experience was not an individual one; I learned its OK to lean on my greatest supporters—my father and my coaches.
What does it mean to live your life with strength and honor?
Living my life with strength and honor can be described in many ways. The strength to get out of bed in the morning after studying late into the night. The honor associated with perpetuating a well-known family name. The strength to empty out one’s gas tank late in the third period or overtime to secure a victory over a strong opponent. The honor of getting your name headlined in the local paper. The strength to lose a loved one and learn from their mistakes and living on to honor their loss. Living with strength means finding sanctity in the mundane and being willing to do what others are not. Living with honor means adhering to moral codes and having great integrity. I can stand tall knowing I have dedicated myself to becoming a strong young man because I have been weak. I can hold myself to a high standard of honor because of the great examples that have been set for me in the sport of wrestling and my family.
What’s next?
Next school year, I will attend Colorado School of Mines and hopefully wrestle there. The goal is to earn a four-year degree with a major in electrical engineering. Until then, I plan on continuing my straight A's and completing 20 more hours of community service to earn my honors diploma. I also plan on speaking at graduation as the co-valedictorian and mentioning some of the lessons that wrestling has taught me.