Brian Chao is currently juggling AP Psychology, Math HL, and AP English while maintaining a solid unweighted GPA of 3.75. He is the USB Commissioner of Athletics, an extremely time consuming position. To top it all off, Chao is the Varsity wrestling co-captain.
An avid wrestler for four years, Chao was also in track and field his freshman year, and football his freshman and sophomore years. However, he decided to quit when he noticed how much he enjoyed wrestling, and also thought that he would have to dedicate himself solely to that sport. “In order to excel at one sport, you need to concentrate on that sport,” Chao advised.
Although he is one of the top wrestlers on the team, Chao humbly accredits his success to pure hard work. “I was average, but a hard worker. I wasn’t the most talented,” Chao admitted.
He attests the proudest moment of his wrestling career to when he was named the CIF League Champion in the 138 pound weight division, but he does not intend to stop there and has already set a loftier goal in qualifying for State in the 145 pound bracket this year. He also hopes that the entire Varsity team will make it to CIF, as opposed to the 12 out of 14 individuals who qualified last year. Chao has high expectations for his fellow wrestlers, anticipating that they will achieve a lot, including “high morals and [becoming] good men,” from being on the team this season.
During the season, the wrestling team meets and practices from 6th period to 4:30 p.m. every school day of the week. This past summer, members of the team underwent rigorous training and conditioning.
Having been on the wrestling team for four years, Chao had time as an underclassman to observe the seniors and figure out what kind of leader he himself wanted to be. “I tried to imitate their leadership qualities and tried to reproduce the same results, or even better,” Chao said. He decided that teamwork was the most important quality for success this season.
Overall, Chao believes that time management was what helped him out most during his high school career. He was able to handle the extracurricular activities that require such a significant level of dedication, in addition to taking on his challenging coursework.
Chao does not plan on continuing to wrestle in college and instead hopes to focus on business or pre-med at UCLA. He will undoubtedly take the skills he has acquired through his rigorous high school career with him to college.
