Finishing out your career at age 23 might sound short lived, but it's been a long stretch for Zachary Hammond of Mays Landing. He first laced up his sneakers when he was five years old and has been wrestling competitively ever since.

Zachary Hammond (in the red) of Mays Landing wrestling Jermail Porter from Kent State who is an All-American that Zach beat all three times he wrestled him. Now, after spending about four-fifths of his life committed to the sport, he will represent the U.S. at the 2009 Maccabiah Games in Israel this July 12 to 23 as Team USA's representative in the heavyweight wrestling division.

"I'm really very excited about the games," said Zach, who also is dealing with the exhilaration of having just graduated from Cornell University this May. "My parents will be going, too. So will my little brother, aunt, uncle and even some of my cousins. It's difficult to express how really exciting this is."

His parents, Barry and Sharon Hammond of Margate, are also thrilled with Zach's accomplishment.

"I'm extremely excited. This is such a nice honor," said his mother. "He was a four-time starter for his college as a wrestler in the heavyweight division, of which his school came in fifth in the country at the past NCAA Championships in St. Louis this past March."

Zach, who is no stranger to the brush-burn sting of wrestling mats and the pain that comes with a damaged meniscus or torn cartilage, is equally excited about making it to the Maccabiah Games.

"I've been competing since I was about five years old. I don't remember exactly how I got involved, but I just started doing it. And I liked it. My parents were serious from the beginning, and they sacrificed a lot. Every single Sunday we were in a gym from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. All day. I started tournaments when I was six, my brother Dillon was five, when he started. He's three and a half years younger than I.

Dillon was also a wrestler, hitting the mats through high school. He's now in college, but not wrestling.

"My parents really gave up a lot of their time to taking me to matches, Zach said. "They took me to the township team, Mays Landing, and I wrestled there for a few years. Then it was Mullica Township for prehigh school wrestling, and high school at Absagami High School.

"I just never tired of wrestling. I think the thing that kept me fresh was that most wrestlers wrestler year round. I would also do baseball in summer and football in the fall. I never tired of it. And from the start I was winning a lot more than I was losing. I seemed to have caught on quickly, and I was strong at a young age."

His talent has earned him numerous awards and team captain status. In college he was a three-time NCAA Division 1 qualifier. Of his numerous accomplishments there is one that has special meaning.

"Before high school they have an Eastern National Tournament. I had done it before but never came in first. I took third and a fifth, but never won it. Then, when I was 11, it was my goal to win the entire thing. I worked really hard and got first place."

And what made the win extra special was that the competition was held at Cornell.

Zach, who is six feet tall and weighs 240 pounds, credits much of his success - along with the help and dedication of his parents - to "excellent coaching in high school and college." He was recruited by Penn State, Virginia and Cornell, and said that his heart was always definitely set on Cornell.

"You can't go wrong going to Cornell when you think of its academic side and its wrestling program. You've go the best of both worlds."

In his freshman year at Cornell he remembers competing against two seniors for a varsity spot in the heavyweight class.

"The way they do it there is we host our own tournament. Coach puts every body in their weight class and you wrestle. Whoever does best becomes the starter. I beat a senior and won a varsity spot."

That was the good news.

"The next week, in practice, I blew out just about every ligament in my knee. I needed major reconstruction surgery and was in a wheelchair for about a month after surgery. I rehabbed for almost nine months. I got surgery in January, was on mat again in October. Within a few weeks I needed another surgery on the same knee, but it was not as serious.

"There were frustrating times. Very frustrating times. Once I was inured for a whole season," Zach said. "Wrestling has a lot of pain and a lot of frustration. But I wanted to make it work. I never quit anything in my life."

When close to 50,000 people attend the opening ceremony for the Games at Tel Aviv's Ramat Gan Stadium on July 13, along with Zachary Hammond will be Team USA youth basketball head coach Scott Greenman of Linwood, and Mina Shakarshy, 16, of Margate, playing for Team USA's junior squash team.