Wrestlers are some of the most passionate athletes on Earth. So much work goes into just being an average wrestler that it is almost impossible for a wrestler to have that passion. To become an elite wrestler, most ratchet that passion up to another level. Then you have Kasson-Mantorville’s Patrick Kennedy. Even for an elite wrestler, the four-time state champion has an uncommon passion for wrestling.
“I wrote a goal on October 8th, 2017, on a piece of paper that is on the wall that I am going to be an Olympic champion,” Kennedy said. “I am not going to do anything that I can control with my effort that would jeopardize anything that would make me not become an Olympic champion. I have become obsessed with it. (The goal) is on my phone. I write it on my assignments at school, I just want the end goal, and I am prepared to do a lot for it.”
Kennedy’s passion didn’t come from a long line of Kennedy wrestlers.
“My dad was the first person in my family to wrestle,” Kennedy explained. “My grandpa and uncle played basketball.”
Despite his lack of wrestling genes, Kennedy started early, and as soon as his family moved, his wrestling career took off.