Sahm's Unique Path to West Point
Senior Sahm Abdulrazzaq recently completed his four-year career as a cadet-athlete on the Army West Point Wrestling team. His brother Fahad is a junior, who also attends the United States Military Academy and is a cadet-athlete on the boxing team. Sahm and his brother Fahad’s background is unique and embodies the “American dream”.
Sahm was born in Iraq in 1999 and later raised in Woodbridge, Va. In Iraq, his father, Bilal Alkaraghulli was an interpreter and was also a veterinarian for the U.S. Army and the U.S. Government. His father would come to the United States for conferences and Sahm remembers his dad saying, “This is the life I want my kids to have, to grow up in America.” In 2007 his father received an opportunity to come to the U.S. on a special immigrant visa, when talking about his parents Sahm said “This whole story of me and my brother never would have been a thing without my parent’s sacrifice to move their entire lives. They moved everything, they were able to risk everything and live with the consequences, what could have been, but they didn’t.” He went on to say that he and his brother are models of who his parents are.
They taught us everything they know, never give up, never quit, and always try to be the best you can be.
Sahm graduated from Woodbridge High School in 2018 and was on the wrestling team. Throughout his process of looking at colleges, he had a couple of offers to wrestle at the Division I level. Knowing he wanted to wrestle, Sahm applied to the United States Military Academy and was accepted to attend the Prep School. While not receiving offers from other D-I programs, Sahm joined the wrestling program at West Point, and it worked out for the best, wrestling all five years at the Academy, and earning a starting position his senior year. In the 2023 season, he was nationally ranked throughout the season, saying “It was awesome because I was never ranked in high school, but I was ranked in college.”
I chose West Point because of the opportunities it granted, it’s basically an Ivy League level education and I knew I wanted something that would challenge me physically, mentally, and academically and I thought West Point was a great place because it’s very different than any other school.
He continued by saying “At a school like Harvard or Princeton, students are going to be better academically than you, but here there are people that are better at almost everything than you. There are a lot of people here who are better than me at something, and that makes you better.”
He mentioned how in his first two miles running at the prep school, he was lapped by a member of the track team.
“I’ll never forget it. A girl on the track team embarrassed me. I remember thinking wow, I have never been lapped in my life. I went from a big fish in a small pond to a small fish in a ginormous pond, and I love that, it’s something I thrive off, it makes me better, and everyone around me better.
During his time at West Point, Sahm is a three-time letter winner with the wrestling program. When describing Sahm, Head Coach Kevin Ward said, “He is super social and charismatic and the life of the party in any room.”
Sahm is passionate, enthusiastic, and emotional when it comes to his wrestling. He knew what he wanted to accomplish and somehow always found himself in the conversation and in the mix to accomplish his goals, he worked hard to put himself in the position to accomplish his goals.- Kevin Ward, Army Wrestling Head Coach
Sahm is graduating from the United States Military Academy, majoring in engineering management. He was named to the 2022-23 EIWA All-Academic Award, having a cumulative GPA of 3.1. Sahm branched infantry, and after graduation, he will head to Fort Campbell.
When talking about balancing wrestling and academics, Ward said “It’s about the priorities you have, and he made wrestling and academics a priority, and it wasn’t easy to have that kind of GPA at a school as rigorous as West Point, it means he was able to prioritize the things that mattered most to him.”
