Of Hot Wheels and Wrestling

It’s that time of year for anticipation and participation,  Most adults anticipate while others participate.  I give thanks and grace to those participating, especially because most of those participating are children.  Unfortunately, one of the dimmest of those children golfs in a White House.  Since I can’t digress from that, I will elevate to a different level: youth wrestling.

Twenty years ago, I witnessed one of the most spectacular feats in sports.  It wasn’t the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat, it was the apathy of entertainment.  While attending a youth wrestling event, one of which my nephew was participating in, we were forced to watch others wrestle in between the six hundred gallons of Gatorade provided between matches.  After a urine intermission, we were awaiting my nephew’s match.  The eight year  old entering the mat was carrying his hot wheels and placed them strategically on the mat as though they were a symbol of comfort.  The official allowed them to be present and within the first four seconds of the match, the boy owning the hot wheels was on his back prepared to be pinned.  Not no fast.  Before you are pinned, both shoulder blades  must remain on the mat before the match is concluded.  He kept one shoulder off the mat while he played with his hot wheels simultaneously.  Rolling them back and forth, it looked like he didn’t have a care in the the world.  For me, it would look like I had just been been bitten by a rattle snake.  It was beautiful. If only we could hear him whistling while displaying such a courageous act of relaxation.

Forgive me if I did not describe this properly while providing an adequate picture in your brain.  I have been to the Sistine Chapel.  The Chapel was mere child’s play compared to the art I witnessed that day.  Chin pinched to the front of his scapula, a  boy desperately struggling to keep his shoulder off the mat to save his hot wheels wasn’t worth the trip to
Rome.  He built that Valley mat in less than a day.,

 

Turn on the Lights

Light poles weren’t easy to come around in Spokane, Washington in the ninety seventies.  They weren’t even easy to hide behind on a night when lights were required.

My late brother, Steve, although mostly revered for his wrestling talents, was also just as talented on the baseball diamond.  Too young to witness him playing, I can only recount some of his past through friends’ voices and my siblings’ memories.

While being recruited by college baseball coaches, Steve forbid our father from coming to any of his games.  Our father was not one who said anything during the game.  He would, however, discuss your batting average after the game.

Steve believed if our father was at the game, his batting average would drop dramatically.  Since he believed it, Steve was correct. He didn’t perform well when our father was watching.  Therefore, Steve asked dad to stop coming to all of his games.  Dad loved baseball and didn’t respect his son’s wishes.

One evening, after going to confession, my father thought it would’t be a terrible sin to show up to his games if he used camouflage.  It was the light pole which almost provided it.

Steve was playing centerfield, and our father was hiding behind the light pole directly behind him.  Steve sniffed him out and called him out.  “Dad! I know you’re hiding behind the pole!”

Dad found somewhere else to hide, Steve quit playing baseball after high school, and went on to win a National Collegiate Wrestling Championship .

Dad knew nothing about wrestling, but I know he was proud.

 

 

These Aren’t Gold?

At the ages between five and 18, when you win wrestling tournaments, you receive a medal.  It may look like gold, but isn’t genuine gold. As a youngster, around nine or ten years of age, I won a few myself, but they weren’t even worth a copper penny.  They weren’t worth zinc.  Then, I began taking second and third place, thus receiving silver and bronze medals.  Those medals were made of aluminum foil and caramel apples.  The gold ran out for me just like it did for those after the rush.

In Alaska, they refer to those gold medals as fool’s gold.  Evidently, nobody can fool one of my great nephews.  His name is Rocco, and with that name, you better live up to that name.  As a wrestler, so far, he has.  He additionally is trying to maintain a sense of reality. With the help of his father, after winning a few of these “gold” medals himself, his father, Pat, had to break the news to his young son.  “Rocco, you know those aren’t made out of genuine gold, right?”

“These aren’t really made of Gold?”

“No.”

Wildly disappointed, and with maniacal curiosity, Rocco asked, “How do I get REAL gold?”

Pat made an attempt to explain to his son what real gold was, then proceeded to tell him how he could obtain this precious medal.  “You mine for it in California, or Alaska or win it in the Olympics.”

This didn’t sit well with Rocco at all.  Quite sure his goal is not to be a miner when he grows up, I guess we’ll see how much sweat, blood and tears he have will to suffer through to obtain gold at the Olympics.

Honestly, I think a smaller, yet worthy and more obtainable goal, would be striving for becoming, I don’t know, a doctor or an astronaut.

I’ll write the conclusion to this blog in about twenty years.

 

Bottled Water: 1976

Born in 1973, I guess I knew what bottled milk was, but bottled water?…..  I’m still getting used to the idea.

In 1976, my brother, Steve, didn’t know what bottled water was either.  Since we came from a town with reliable tap water, why would the idea of bottling it cross our cave dwelling minds? Bottled water to Steve, and many others, was as inconceivable as a man landing on the moon.  He heard it had happened in 1969, but similar to others, Steve requested moon rocks to confirm it.  Bottled water was no exception.

My brother, Steve, was in Cleveland, Ohio during the 1976 Wrestling Olympic Trials.  As a former National Collegiate Wrestling Champion, he was qualified for the trials.  Clearly, his opponents would be formidable, but according to him, not quite as intimidating as the tap water in Cleveland.  While staying at a local Cleveland Sheridan, Steve, after a lengthy workout, tasted the water in his hotel room.  His description of the water was less than delightful.

“It was a milky substance tasting as though it had also ran through a 1927 garden hose.”

After a call to the front desk, Steve informed the clerk, with detail, something was wrong with the water, and other guests should be notified before drinking it.  The desk clerk’s response was simple.

“You didn’t drink any of that water, did you?”

“Well, Yes!”

“Sir, everyone knows they shouldn’t drink any of our water out of the tap.”

“Well, I’m not everyone!  What the hell am I supposed to drink?!!”

“Bottled water, Sir.”

“What the Hell is that?”

“It’s water in a bottle which has been distilled and packaged for consumption when common tap water is filled with human waste, as well as many other animal’s less than agreeable releases.”

“Ok.  Can you send some of that stuff up here?”

Steve never qualified for the Olympics, but he is still alive and drinking tap water.

 

 

 

Lock Down

I’m not a “We’re all winners!” type of guy.

While watching a baseball game recently, I was asked a complex question regarding coaching.  In my former life, I was a coach at every level up through high school.  Little League, middle school, high school, you name it.  I was a coaching nomad.  Some of those years ended with success and others in failure.   Other than soccer, I think I coached just about every sport, so I thought I had some credibility while answering the question.

I was asked how a coach should motivate a team with potential but lacking motivation. My response was simple and even a bit primitive.  “Sometimes, you just have to scare the Hell out of them.  Make them think you’re a little crazy.  And, sometimes, depending on your audience, it works.”

Years ago, after an embarrassing loss while coaching a wrestling team with fantastic potential, I wasn’t as much upset about the defeat as I was about how our team responded to the loss.  Witnessing one of our best wrestlers making out with his girlfriend in the stands shortly after he was pinned left me more than a little irritated.  Shortly after shaking hands with the winning team, I encouraged our team to get into the locker room for a post match lesson.

Recognizing I was in a pretty serious disposition, the room was silent, and I was calm… for the moment.  The fear in their eyes was clear, and because I was a bit unpredictable, well, that was precisely how I wanted them to feel.  It was then, not saying a word, I, ominously, locked all three of the locker room doors, making sure no one was going to be in the room except them and me.  (Crickets.)  After a minute of awkward silence, I finally broke the silence, because I hate seeing anyone look as afraid as they did that evening.

“Hey, Matsuda.”  He was another one of our best wrestlers delivering a less than adequate performance that afternoon.  “Get out of the way.”

Matsuda looked at me with a “What, huh?”.  I was probably fifteen feet away from him.  “Get out of the way.”  His back was to the lockers and he didn’t understand why he needed to get out of the way, so he asked, very politely, looking back and forth to his teammates, and with terror in his eyes, “Where do you want me to go, coach?”

“I’m going to throw this garbage can in your general direction, and since it is full of garbage, I don’t want it to hit you.  Get out of the way.”

Matsuda managed to get out of the way, the can exploded against the lockers, spewing refuse everywhere, and before picking up the carnage by myself, I let them know how representative the garbage was in relation to how they performed that afternoon.  I’m not necessarily proud of that moment, but we didn’t lose another match for the rest of the year.

The following day, figuring I’d be reprimanded by my administrative Gods or receive some parental concerns, it was quite the contrary.   I received one phone call from a parent only praising me for my actions.

Years later, wrestlers entered my  classroom recollecting that day and the story blossomed, or perhaps mushroomed, depending on their perspective.  Many of those remembering that evening were not members of our team.  That always made me laugh.