NCAA Wrestling is done for the season, and Luke Pletcher got me thinking about Hank Williams Jr. and some folkstyle fans from somewhere around Ithaca.

All season long, Pletcher – the No. 1 seed in the country at 141 pounds – entered Ohio State’s Covelli Center to the twangy, fun-loving refrain of Bocephus’ classic hit “Family Tradition.” While the song focuses on Williams’ beer-drinking, smoke-filled, honky-tonk lifestyle, the general idea of a family tradition is powerful.

As the legions of fans across the country faced the gut-punch realization that there would be no NCAA Wrestling Championships this season, a few on Twitter made the observation that everyone’s “years in a row” counter would restart to zero now. And that hit me in a strange way, because my counter was just at two.

My first year of covering the sport of wrestling was Kyle Snyder’s senior season at Ohio State, when the Buckeyes had a dream of winning a second national championship and potentially finish with 10 All-Americans. The tournament was in Cleveland, which added to the special feeling of the event for a guy covering the Buckeyes.

The first morning there I grabbed breakfast in the media hotel, and it was the first time I met Jeff Stieber, father of Hunter and Logan Stieber. The Stieber family, in addition to being wrestling royalty in Ohio, is one of the nicest collections of human beings you could ever hope to meet. Mr. Stieber picked me out of the crowd because I had an Eleven Warriors decal on my laptop and came over to say hello. Even though we’d never met, finding someone I had a connection with at my first tournament made me feel welcome, at home somehow.

Later that day, snagging a burger at the hotel bar between sessions, I met a group of gentlemen who saw my press lanyard and wanted to talk shop. They were Cornell fans, decked in Big Red regalia, and shared that the group of them had been coming together to the NCAA tournament for decades, and one or two members of the group were now the second generation to make the annual pilgrimage to the sport’s season finale.

So those random tweets about restarting the counter made me think of those fellows, those incredibly kind Cornell fans who spent part of their afternoon making a rookie reporter feel welcome, and introducing him to the “family tradition” that surrounds the sport of wrestling generally, and its annual championship contest specifically. 

The Stiebers and those Cornell fans made me feel like I was part of the wrestling family, even though it was the first wrestling tournament I’d ever attended. My heart aches for those friends and families who were denied that annual experience they look forward to every year, every bit as much as it did for the wrestlers who won’t get to run out onto the mats next week in Minneapolis.

Who knows what the future holds for Luke Pletcher, and fellow senior co-captain Kollin Moore? The two rode almost wire to wire together as the two of the top-ranked men in the country; they were both set to enter their final tournaments as No. 1 seeds on target to win their first NCAA championships and wrestling the best matches of their careers.

It may have been their last shot, pending some NCAA action to grant an additional year of eligibility to athletes affected by this unprecedented situation.

Neither man said anything on Twitter Thursday; that’s not really their style. But their coach, Tom Ryan, offered some perspective in a heartfelt message via Facebook.

“Two seniors ranked #1 had poured their life into becoming an NCAA Champion. This end was unimaginable,” he wrote. “I have learned in life that the things that are most impactful are the things that touch us personally. This one touched us. No one knows what it feels like to have a title shot taken away except someone who had a shot. I watched these men battle day in and day out. They gave so much. They sacrificed the painless things for the painful things.”

If they never wrestle another match in scarlet and gray, the legacy they’ve left their program, and fans of the sport across the country, is undeniable. Regardless of accolades won or title shots taken away, they’ll be remembered. 

That’s the wrestling family tradition.

Andy Vance is a Columbus-based journalist who covers the Ohio State University wrestling program for Eleven Warriors, the largest independent sports site on the internet for Ohio State news, analysis, and community. He is co-host of the site’s Eleven Dubcast podcast. Follow him on Twitter @AndyVance.