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North Polk senior wails out National Anthem on guitar before wrestling his opponents

Chance Bockenstedt plays the Star-Spangled Banner on the electric guitar before each home wrestling meet as he chases a state title.

ALLEMAN, Iowa — The stage for the State Wrestling Tournament is what every high school wrestler in Iowa chases. 

That’s certainly the case for North Polk senior Chance Bockenstedt, who has one last chance at a state crown this year.

“Everything I’ve been doing has been leading up to my senior year been planning to make it to the finals and winning at state this year,” Bockenstedt said.

His career has certainly built up to this point.

“As a sophomore he was a qualifier, a place-winner as a junior, and chasing that title as a senior,” North Polk Wrestling Coach, Kirk Hesse said.

So, every day he takes the mat, he’s working toward that goal.

“I’m giving it everything I got. Every single night I’m in the gym doing something," Bockenstedt said. "I’m always doing extra conditioning, extra lifting, I’m always watching wrestling, trying to figure out how I can improve."

He even does a little extra before his home meets get started. You see, after Chance warms up, he tunes up.

“He came up and said 'Hey the guys have been kind of pushing me they've been telling me I can do this, I'd like to play the National Anthem,'" Coach Hesse said. "And I said 'Great, I'd love to have you perform live rather than recording'. He plays the French horn and I just assumed he was playing the French horn and all of a sudden I heard the guitar warm up."

“Some of my teammates have done the anthem before and I thought, 'Wow that wasn’t very good I bet I could do better.'"

He went to work, just like with his wrestling, taking inspiration from the greatest guitarist in rock-n-roll history.

"Jimi Hendrix did it and I got on a fascination with anthems and I thought that’s not too hard. I thought I bet I can do that and it’d be pretty awesome."

Now, before every home wrestling meet for North Polk, Chance plugs in his guitar and lets it wail out the national anthem.

“A lot of distortion lot of rock feel to it. It’s very hype after listening to it, you’re ready to go. It’s not something that’s going to put you to sleep."

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