Reid Ballantyne

The Guillotine – January 14, 2021

The January 14, 2021 issue of The Guillotine has arrived! Content in this issue includes: Mind Over Matter - Reid Ballantyne | The Benefits of Change – Garrison Solliday | Family Ties – Bennett Berge | Lace ‘Em Up - Watching Wrestling | Camps-Clinics-Training | MWCA Report - Positively Impacting Young People | High School Rankings | Officially Speaking - MSHSL Covid Rules | Too Good To Be True? - SAO | Performance Nutrition - Staying Focused Amidst Challenges | Mini-Wins Lead To Major Growth - Matt Everson and Saint Thomas Academy | Ask The Doc - Control The Risk | Where Have They Gone? - Tyler Tubbs.

View this issue below.

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Rough-and-tumble Reid Ballantyne seeks to achieve wrestling rarity

When he was about 10 years old, an age when many wrestlers are just getting started and finding their way around a mat, Reid Ballantyne had had enough.

Ballantyne had the experienced normal youth wrestling ups and downs — some promising victories mixed with a few emotionally crushing losses. The latter, Ballantyne thought, were just too much to endure.

So he made up his mind that he would never again be willing to allow an opponent an advantage. Losing never sat well. Giving up so much as a single point was a personal insult.

“It was never the wins that drove him, it was always the losses,” said the Stillwater senior’s father, Steve. “They were getting tougher for him to deal with every year. That’s when he became bulletproof.” Continue reading at mnwrestlinghub.com →

Mind Over Matter – Reid Ballantyne

By Brian Jerzak

Stillwater’s senior Reid Ballantyne has a chance to become the seventh high school wrestler in Minnesota history to win five individual state titles. Every one of the other wrestlers who have at least five titles has overcome obstacles and injuries. I doubt any of them had the injury issues of Ballantyne. The senior has endured so many injuries that he is gearing up for a run at a fifth straight title, and then, who knows?

The kind of effort it has taken and is going to take for Ballantyne to win that fifth title – with possibly no expectation of a wrestling career beyond high school – is the definition of dedication. His quest for five titles has been a case of mind over matter.

His dedication to wrestling started early.

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