Unfinished Business- My Wrestling Life

 

We didn’t usually run in the gym. We ran around the wrestling room; heat cranked up and our bodies emitting sauna-like humidity. That day was different though. I can’t remember why we were in the bigger area. It felt good at first; a little refreshing. But after three or four laps around, my asthma was kicking in and I slowed down. Just after I passed Coach Goetz, I stopped. Hands on my hips, bent over and wheezing.

Coach Goetz noticed and scolded me. “No breaks! Let’s go! Run!” I looked at him. I knew what he was saying made sense to him. I said nothing in return. I started to jog. I could feel the heat rising up my neck to my face. The door was on the opposite wall. I took a quick look back at the coaches gathered near each other and my team mates circling the gym, then I turned and ran out the door. My adrenaline was up, endorphins flowing through my small frame. I was thinking, “I did it.” It was not a particularly liberating thought, but it was a statement of fact. I did do it. I quit wrestling.

I did not quit wrestling because I believed it was not the sport for me. It was the only sport for me. I quit because I didn’t believe I was capable of doing what my heart desired- winning. It was my decision but it broke my heart.

My parents were always supportive of me and only missed a match if we were wrestling out of town. I was not prepared to tell them that I had quit the team. I did not feel like answering questions. I spent the block of time carved out for practice in the weight room. My dad ran into my coach and found out from him that I had left the team. He did not argue against my decision. He just wanted make sure I had thought it through. I had not but I said I had. When that was settled, he asked me to join him coaching fifth and sixth graders back at my old school. He drew on my wrestling knowledge and I enjoyed being his partner in that endeavor.

My dad never wrestled competitively. He supported us in whatever we did though. He moved the chains at my brother’s football games. He helped coach my sister’s swim team. But his longest-standing arrangement was assisting Don Sullivan, my middle school wrestling coach and teacher. Dad helped out with the 5th and 6th graders while Don coached the older boys. He started this while I was in middle school and they were partners for nearly twenty years after. We lost my dad in 1999. Recently Don told me that he respected my dad because he always put the person before the wrestler.

I only helped dad for a little while. I pursued other interests; being part of our church youth community and acting in school plays. I became a weekend drinker and I prized that euphoria over almost anything else at that time in my life. It was my escape and I didn’t have to feel less-than. In retrospect, I think the anger and disappointment I felt about failing at wrestling was part of what I wanted to numb myself from.

My first ever wrestling match was in a beginners tournament inside the UNI-dome at the University of Northern Iowa. I was in fourth grade. There were dozens of boys moving around on the six mats, all dressed in different color singlets and shoes, headgears dangling around their wrists or snapped onto their singlets. Some were in sweats. Others wore t-shirts over top of their singlets. The mats had a distinct fragrance. It was new and somehow promising. I was not aware of what was about to happen, but I already felt that I belonged.

I come from a wrestling family…a BIG family. My dad was in the middle of fifteen children. I have approximately fifty cousins on that side of the family (I lose count). Most of my cousins who wrestled were state place winners. Mike Craig set the bar. I remember watching Mike wrestle when he was in high school and I was a fourth or fifth grader. When he wrestled at the State Tournament, it was a family gathering. It was a momentous event and I was mystified by the size of the arena and the sea of spirited wrestling fans. I guess you could say wrestling was a rite of passage for most of us Craig boys. It was something we learned and shared during our formative years. We saw a lot of each other, wrestling on opposing teams when we were young and as team mates at our Catholic high school.

My brother Joe is three years older than I am. He played every sport and was a fierce competitor. Joe was a baseball standout and would go on to play college ball. But, like all of us, he loved (loves) wrestling. When I was in fifth grade and he was in eighth, we wrestled for the same school. That year his nose was broken while defending a stand-up. It could have been a season ender and in his last before high school. He didn’t want to end his season that way. Our coach secured a face-guard that looked like a goalie’s mask. I thought it made him look tough. I always wanted to be like him.

I was in sixth grade when I started wrestling at the Boys Club (later to be the Boys and Girls Club) in Waterloo, Iowa. I went there with my friend Chris after our school wrestling practice. Our parents took turns driving us across town on dark winter nights. My cousin David was there already. Bill Tate Sr. was our coach. His two sons Bill Jr. (Bam Bam) and Brandon wrestled there as well and would both go on to wrestle at Columbus High School with myself, my brother and my cousins.

The Boys Club opened up opportunities to wrestle as part of a team in open tournaments and to wrestle in Boys Club tournaments out of state. We were given the reversable red and blue Boys Club singlets. I was proud to wear one. When we traveled, we stayed in gymnasiums together. We slept in sleeping bags on the floor. I’m sure we had a curfew, but the excitement of a “sleepover” and the anticipation of the next day’s competition was a lot for us boys. It took a while for us to unwind and settle down. We were teammates and we rooted for each other. I would meet up with these guys at wrestling events and later at college, in the clubs and around town. We always acknowledged each other warmly, like we were members of a secret club.

Tate coached more than a dozen Iowa high school state champions (some two or three time), covering all four of the Waterloo metro high schools. Home to Olympian and legendary coach Dan Gable, Waterloo was a hotbed of Iowa wrestling at the time and I had the honor of sharing the mat with so many talented wrestlers, including Bill Jr., my cousin Mike VanArsdale and Stewart Carter who all had stellar college careers at Iowa State University.

In my younger years, I was an average wrestler. I accumulated a nice collection of trophies and ribbons from our parochial school tournaments and the Saturday tournaments at public schools around the area. I especially enjoyed a rivalry with Andy Byrnes who wrestled at St. Mary’s with my cousin John. We wrestled at 77 pounds in both 7th and 8th grade and our matches were always close. Andy and I became friends in high school. In fact, Andy was the first person I ever got drunk with. Freshman year we consumed a twelve pack of six point Canadian beer that I stole from my brother and then we walked (stumbled?) to a school dance. We were both 98-pounders at the time, weighing closer to 85 pounds. We were feeling just fine.

There was one major difference in high school wrestling from all the wrestling I had done until then. The duration of the match changed from three one-minute periods to three two-minute periods. I survived freshman year, losing more than I was accustomed to. Sophomore year, I made varsity. There were two freshmen behind me and I never lost a match to either of them. I had asthma though and it was more evident as I came up against some high caliber opponents. I rarely made it through the first period. I was self-conscious and got cotton mouth every time I rushed out under the spotlight; the first guy on the mat representing my team. My record was abysmal. I took abuse from classmates and I beat myself up for losing to opponents that I knew were not superior in talent.

My sophomore summer, I was included in the group of wrestlers that our coach took to some freestyle tournaments. It was brutal, but I liked getting a taste of something new. On the wall of my bedroom, I had a poster of Dan Gable on his way to winning the 1972 Olympics. Freestyle wrestling is Olympic style. I got a small taste. I liked wrestling primarily on my feet. That was my strength.

In my twenties, I was hired as a cook in one of the campus dining halls at Northern Iowa. I had finished my freshman year there just after high school but was only half-committed to my studies. I left school but returned to campus as a full-time employee. Eventually I re-enrolled, first by taking night classes, then by going to work part-time and becoming a full-time student again.

A few of the students I worked with in the dining hall were former high school wrestlers and they informed me that there was going to be an intermural tournament at the college. I was in pretty good shape. I was running 5 and 10ks, playing racquetball and working out regularly. I signed up. My dad was not thrilled with the idea. He reminded me that I had made a decision to walk away. He warned that I was not prepared to wrestle guys who had wrestled four years in Iowa high schools. I believe he was concerned I would be injured. I went forward with it anyway and I won my first match. I lost my second match by four points, but made it all the way through. It brought some closure, but also a ton of regret. I wondered what could have been.

I stayed close to the sport though. I went with my dad to every UNI home meet and to the NCAA championships wherever they were held. After moving to the East Coast when I was twenty-seven, I returned for the NCAA tournament a few years later when  it was held at UNI. My mom was Assistant to the Athletic Director and she was deeply involved in getting things set up. It goes without saying that we had good seats. There were family and friends in the stands. I sat next to Don Sullivan and enjoyed catching up with him. I had been in the UNI-Dome countless times since my youth; attending ball games and concerts and on other special occasions. But nothing compared to being there with loved ones at what was (to many of us) the best event ever held there.

After that, wrestling was off my radar for a while. I was committed to a life of activism and advocacy. I loved the work and in my spare time I did a lot of reading and writing. I had put many miles between my new life and my old one. I rarely thought of wrestling. I did not own a television and that was fine….for a while.

Eventually I got married and we started a family. We got a television. Later we purchased a cable package that included the Big Ten Network. I was able to see every Iowa football game and when wrestling season started, I was hooked! Sometimes I sat in front of the television. Sometimes I could not sit. I was on my feet or bent over, trying to virtually assist my Hawkeye wrestler. I knew who the best wrestlers were and I waited eagerly for March and the NCAA Championships, the Superbowl of College wrestling. Wrestling was part of my life again. I was satisfied watching it on television. I figured out how to watch all year long; college, freestyle, World and Olympic Championships. I was even able to watch the Iowa High School state tournament online.

Wrestling is not a subject that is widely shared in casual conversation. Not in my neck of the woods. While working my last job at a hospital in Maryland, I met someone who had wrestled at a local Division 2 College. When we were not working together, we might share a text about a particular college match or how one of us saw someone hit a rarely executed move. I had not talked wrestling with anyone for a long time. I liked having a wrestling buddy. Jacque was also a friend and a supportive co-worker. He told me he was going to help a friend of his coach a local high school team and asked me if I was interested in helping. I laughed and told him I was a little far over that hill and that I valued my old bones.

After I left the hospital job last year, I took a position at Newark High School in Delaware. Even though I started college as an education major almost forty years ago, this was my first time ever working in a school. I spent a semester getting acclimated. When school started this year, I was having fun forming relationships with new students; learning about their interests and passions. October came and one of my students, a junior, told me he was considering joining the wrestling team. He asked me what I thought. I was unrestrained in my praise of the sport and he made the decision to join the team.

The day after my student informed me he was going to wrestle, I was reading my staff email and there was an opening for an Assistant Wrestling Coach. I felt less than qualified but I decided to give it a shot. I wanted to support my student. I thought it was a brave move for him to start wrestling as a junior, knowing most of the guys he wrestled would have at least two years of experience on him. I was ready to sign on as a volunteer if I wasn’t hired as an Assistant. Regardless, I was going to be on a wrestling mat. Just the idea opened a quiet place within.

I did get hired and I started corresponding with the head coach immediately. Coach Robeson was welcoming and was not at all hesitant about my inexperience coaching high school guys. In fact, he told me that none of the members of last year’s team had ever wrestled in school before that. There were only five guys on the team and Coach Robeson had put in some real work to revive the program after the pandemic and to mold these young men into wrestlers.

We started this season with more than twenty wrestlers. Word was getting out around school that wrestling was a valid, competitive, enjoyable sport. Last year’s guys brought in their friends and the comradery was organic. Before instruction could begin, guys were testing their mettle; brimming with enthusiasm and taking it to the mat. Returning wrestlers were thirsty for competition and the new guys were curious, looking for the opportunity to lock up with their teammates and give it a try.

I was not sure what would be required of me physically, but I came prepared. I had been a regular at the gym for most of last year, pushing myself on the treadmill. I used my stretch bands at home for toning and limberness. If nothing else, I felt strong. As practices started rolling, I decided to put myself in harm’s way, drilling with some of the heavier wrestlers and doing my best to reinforce Coach Robeson’s instructions. From the perspective of a lightweight (which I have not actually been for a very long time), I worked with guys on agility more than strength. I went head-to-head with most of the returning wrestlers, trying to present some of the challenges they might face in the upcoming matches.

As the season progressed, the lineup shook out. Our guys soon went to work against the other teams in our conference and faced the best in the state in tournament wrestling. All in all, experience prevailed. Our experienced guys inched closer to becoming state qualifiers and the newbies (who had taken their lumps) emerged with grit and desire. There was celebration as first-year wrestlers got their first wins and experienced wrestlers translated the lessons from practice into victory on the mat. There was also disappointment when desire fell to skill, experience and occasionally dumb luck. We lost a few dual meets strictly by giving up forfeits. We still didn’t have the depth in our lineup to fill every weight class and it cost us some close ones.

Everything counts though. Each wrestler has to use his own measuring stick to determine success and progress. The same goes for us as coaches when it comes to measuring our team’s progress. We had goals for our guys and hopes for the post-season. But I think we determined early on that we were also working to provide an environment for growth and a place for these high school wrestlers to feel they belonged to something bigger than themselves. On that score, we succeeded.

When I pass our wrestlers in the hall or see them at lunch, they are still side-by-side, in each other’s corners. Most are already training for next season; getting involved in other sports, using the weight room and attending training and live wrestling sessions in the area. They are recruiting their friends and challenging them while roughhousing in gym class. As for the student that I brought in from my class, he wrestled up two classes from his real weight. He was bumped up to heavyweight and got caught underneath some mountainous young men. He stuck out the season and won his last match. Toward the end of the season, he took me down for the first time. I was at once stunned, elated and a little sore. Wrestling is one of the things he is most looking forward to doing his senior year.

I see in these boys a hope and curiosity that has long been retired in my aged psyche. I am awake to who they are and who they are becoming. I have also found a place where I belong; a community of wrestlers, old and young, who have a passion for the sport. I have managed to make peace with the boy who walked away from something he loved. I am not angry or disappointed with him anymore. Rather, I am invested in encouraging our guys to stick it out and work toward their goals with both energy and patience.

I still do a double take in the hallways when a wrestler or a teacher yells “hey coach”. It takes me a second to remember that is who I am now. It is part of my identity. It is a badge I wear with pride. It is an opportunity to contribute to the mental and physical health of those in my charge. It is a way to reach young people who are looking for hope and purpose. It is a way to carry on a family tradition. It is way to honor my dad and my coaches. Finally, it is a way to live in my own skin. It was not such a leap to get here. It is where I always belonged.