I'm less than a half a year from being out of wrestling for as long as I was in it. In some ways it's easy for me to believe. I'm certainly not 145 lbs anymore. It doesn't feel like it's been 11 years since I last competed, though. I used to be able to wrestle a 6 minute match at full exertion and be able to walk off the mat only slightly breathing hard. Today simply bending over to tie my shoe exerts the same amount of heavy breathing.
YEAR ONE:
It all started with an interest in professional wrestling. I was over at the neighbor boy's house one day, when his dad came into the room we were playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in and told us that wrestling was on T.V. We ran into the living room and I witnessed my first ever professional wrestling match. I was hooked and ran home to tell my Dad that one day I was going to be a professional wrestler.
A couple of years later, after P.E. class, our teacher Mr. Mateer passed out flyers for Little Savage wrestling and told us to give them to our parents. I took it home and gave it to my Dad who thought it was a great idea for me to try wrestling. A few nights later my Uncle Jim Eversmeyer took me to a Sigourney dual meet. I don't remember a lot about the dual meet, but I remember watching Derek Miller, Sigourney's HWT and being fascinated by him. He was big and strong and picked people up and slammed them down, just like they did in professional wrestling.
I'm not sure how he found out about it, seeing that my parents were divorced and he was on my mother's side, but my Uncle Chris Tompkins gave me a pair of wrestling shoes and wrestling headgear for my first practice. I'll never forget my first practice for a multitude of reasons. First, I got into my mom's makeup and painted my face like the Ultimate Warrior. I knew that there was no kicking or punching allowed in the type of wrestling I was about to do, and I knew that there were other differences between amateur wrestling and professional wrestling, but I didn't realize how different from one another they truly were. When my Dad came over to pick me up, he brought me back to my Grandpa Harry's (where he was living at the time) to wash it off of my face. He then had me put on the pair of headgear that uncle Chris had given me and explained to me that if I took it off, I would get cauliflower ear. I didn't know what cauliflower ear was, but I didn't like the sound of it. As a result, I kept those headgear on the whole time and didn't take them off until my Dad dropped me off at my mom's again. Right before it was time to go to practice, my Dad got down on the living room floor with me and showed me a half nelson. He called it, "the chicken wing" but it was a half nelson.
Larry Bird ran our little kids practice and I found him to be both interesting and a little scary. He showed us how to stand and told us the basic fundamentals of wrestling. He described a proper stance as, "like you're taking a shit out in the woods." In over 20 years of being involved in the sport, I've never heard anyone else quite describe it the same way. Toward the end of practice the high school coach, Coach Yi came into the room to show us a few moves.
The whole practice all of the other kids would shout out the names of the various maneuvers we were being taught. "Double leg!" or "Duck Under!" they'd shout. I wanted to to sound like I knew what was going on, so when Coach Yi showed us the half nelson I got really excited and yelled, "Chicken wing!" as loudly as I could. Coach Yi stopped in the middle of the move, looked me in the eye and said, "No, this is the half nelson." I think he could see something in me that day and he wanted to make sure that I had the name of the move down correctly.
A couple of weeks later, it was time for my first competition. I was nervous and scared. My Uncle Jim road with my Dad and I over to Montezuma high school.
"Look," My Dad said to me before I got onto the mat, "I don't care if you win or lose, but promise me two things. A, you will show good sportmanship no matter what. B, you will not give up no matter what."
It's a good thing that he didn't care whether I won or lost. Had I known what was ahead of me a few minutes later, I doubt I would have shook my head yes and promised that I wouldn't give up.
As soon as the whistle blew, my opponent Brian Flynn of South Tama County had me up in the air and on my back before I could even react. I'd spend the rest of the match that way. With my Dad at one end and my Uncle Jim at the other, I fought as hard as I could refusing to be pinned. Towards the end of the match, I could hardly move. I could hardly breathe. My lungs burned and my body ached. I gave up for a split second, but then I heard My Dad's voice telling me to keep trying. Even the referee and Brian were encouraging me.
"Don't quit now kid!" the referee said to me, "You've gone too far to give up now."
"Yeah!" Brian said while he held me down on my back, "Don't give up. Keep fighting."
I kept fighting and after a 3 minute match that seemed to last decades, it was finally over. Brian Flynn had defeated me 13-0. Dad and Uncle Jim were proud of me though and so was the referee. I didn't really see why, seeing that I had gotten the crap kicked out of me, but perhaps that is part of the weirdness I get from my father. Five minutes later, I was sitting on the bleachers playing cars with Brian. May sound funny to you non-wrestlers out there, but that's usually how it was for me as a wrestler. I would battle with someone on the mat, sometimes rather fiercely but as soon as that final buzzer went off in the third period, we were friends.
My next two matches the referees weren't as gracious as the first one was. In my second match I got the wind knocked out of me and a bloody nose. In my third match I received a huge black eye and a fat lip.
Riding home looking like I had just called Mike Tyson a sissy, I told my Dad that my wrestling days were over. He was disappointed. I could tell he was disappointed, but all he said to me was, "You don't have to wrestle again if you don't want to."
I didn't attend the next few practices. My Dad was in Texas helping to build a new pipeline for Natural Gas Pipeline Company (now Kinder Morgan) and while my Uncle Jim offered to take me to practices, I opted not to go. At school Trevor Rash and Colby Black wanted to know why I had stopped coming to wrestling practices. At the supermarket with my mom one night we ran into Larry Bird and his wife. Larry told me that he was very disappointed that I had stopped coming to wrestling practices. I was one of his favorites and he missed having me around.
That made me feel good. Other than my relatives, I had never been anyone's favorite before. It made me contemplate going back to practices again, but it still wasn't enough to get me to actually go.
Then one night my Dad came back from Texas. I hadn't seen him in a couple of weeks and he had a present for me. It was a WCW action figure of professional wrestler Scott Steiner. As soon as I took it out of the bag, my Dad said he wanted to read the packaging that the action figure came in to me.
"Before he became a WCW tag team champion, Steiner was first a champion on the mat. As an amateur wrestler at the University of Michigan, Steiner was an All American in 1986."
"What's an amateur wrestler?" I asked my Dad.
"Amateur wrestling is what you were doing at the little Savage practices." My Dad explained to me, "And if you want to be a professional wrestler like Scott Steiner someday, you have to do amateur wrestling first."
That's all it took. I was sold. I'd find out years later that there was absolutely no truth whatsoever to what my Dad had said. Even though my amateur wrestling career helped my professional wrestling career in a variety of ways, it was not necessary. Nevertheless as a 7 year old, I believed my Dad.
The rest of the year didn't fare much better for me. I still took a great deal of ass whippings. I did manage to somehow win one match though, to finish out my year 1-13.
YEAR TWO:
Dad had heard from a nearby source that Sigourney two time State Champion Paul Graham was running a little kids wrestling program up in Oskaloosa. Along with going to Sigourney practices, I began attending Oskaloosa practices too. It was a whole new level of wrestling. While I could do fairly well in the Sigourney wrestling room, beating a few kids here and there and holding my own against others, I did nothing but get beat up on in the Osky room. Future high school greats, Dominick Moyer, Brandon Graham and Ryan Groom would all use me as a practice dummy. It wasn't fun getting beat up on all the time, but it must have done me some good because I started winning matches.
I still wasn't good by any means, but I was getting better. I won the Central Lee tournament that year and I had a winning record. If I remember correctly my record was 22-12.
YEAR THREE:
This was my first year wrestling at the AAU's. At the qualifier in Oskaloosa, my Dad kept telling me that I had to place in the top four of my weight class to qualify for the AAU tournament in Cedar Rapids. He told me that my bracket could be as many as 8 guys and I had to place in the top half in order to qualify. Yet when we got to the tournament, there wasn't anyone else in my weight class and I automatically qualified as the district champion.
When we arrived at the AAU tournament in Cedar Rapids my Dad showed me the bracket I was in on the wall. I didn't understand the way brackets worked at the time and all I could think was, "holy crap, I have to wrestle 31 guys in 3 days?"
I lost my first match to a kid that Coach Graham and Dad kept telling me I should have beaten. I came back to win my first consolation match by fall and then I was knocked out of the tournament by a kid who was clearly better than I was. Finishing 1-2, I didn't give team Oskaloosa many points and I felt badly about that. I also watched during the awards ceremony and thought it was so cool listening to names being read aloud over the loud speaker and hearing the audience cheer as they handed out medals. I wanted one of those medals. I wanted to hear my name and listen to the fans of the Oskaloosa kids club cheer for me.
I told my Dad of my desires. He told me that it would take a lot of work to stand on that award stand, but I was good enough to do it.
YEAR FOUR:
Right after baseball season was over, I began thinking about wrestling. My dad started having me ride the exercise bike 20 miles a night, followed by 50 push-ups and 50 setups. My meals consisted of a bowl of soup and a salad. Rarely did I ever eat anything else.
At practice, I began to concentrate harder and really focus on what I was being taught. I paid extra attention to the techniques, tips and strategies Coach Graham taught. I would go over moves again and again and make sure that he approved of how I was doing them. My Dad told me that if I kept working hard and believing in myself, that it would eventually pay off.
My first pay off happened in the finals of a tournament where I would meet a familiar foe, Brian Flynn of South Tama County. My Dad told me that Brian was going to be extremely tough, but to clear my head and just wrestle. I had the tools to beat him, I simply needed to make it happen.
At the end of the third period I couldn't believe it. The score was 4-4. We were headed into overtime and the next person to score was going to be the winner. Brian went for a headlock, I countered and the referee signaled for two. I couldn't believe it. I had beaten Brian Flynn 6-4 sudden victory.
It was a great feeling, and it was only the beginning. Many more great things lay ahead for me that year.
At the Tri-County tournament I had to wrestle Matt Sieren in the best of three. Matt had beaten me every other time we had wrestled. A few times my first year, a couple times my second year and at least one time the year before. My Dad told me not to be afraid of him, but I was. Here I had beaten Brian Flynn, not but a few weeks earlier and now I was afraid of Matt. Our first match, Matt defeated me 5-3. Coach Graham pulled to to the side after the match and told me that it was fine if Matt beat me because he was a better wrestler than me, but it was not ok that he had beaten me out of fear. He and my Dad then took me into the locker room and began to convince me that I had the ability to beat Matt. Our second match was much different. I wasn't afraid this time. Takedown after takedown after takedown, I didn't even look at the score until the end of the match. I had won 12-2. In our third and final match of the night, I pinned him in the first period.
The next day at Sigourney I would wrestle Matt again, only first I had to wrestle Dustin Osweiler of Tri-County who I had wanted to wrestle the night before, but he was in a different bracket than me. Osweiler had pinned me a few years earlier and would often mock me at various tournaments throughout the year. He also would see me at my sister's softball games from time to time and get other kids to make fun of me as well. He called me the worst wrestler he had ever known in his life. At Tri-County the night before he told both me and Matt that we sucked and that he'd kick both our asses if we ever wrestled him. He found out differently the next day in Sigourney.
I went out on the mat, snapped Osweiler by the head and snaked him over in a matter of about 15 seconds. I went to help him up after sticking him, but he slapped my hand away. I suppose he wasn't too happy about being flattened by "the worst wrestler ever."
I'm also happy to report that Matt took 2nd place, and Osweiler took 3rd. After talking with me for a while, I convinced Matt that Osweiler was a chump and that he could beat him too. I don't think Matt pinned him, but he beat him by at least 5 points.
Up until the Newton wrestling tournament, Matt Sieren was my only loss for the year. Dad thought that I was good enough to win the AAU. I was hoping to simply stand on the award stand. 8th place would have been good enough for me. Then I ran into Colfax Mingo's Michael Bucklin. Bucklin hadn't been defeated all year. In the finals, Bucklin defeated me 5-2. Leading me 3-2, I took a desperation shot which he easily countered for the win. He told me that I was his toughest match all season.
At the district tournament, I had to face Bucklin again in the best 2 out of 3 matches. In the first match he defeated me in overtime 3-1. After the match, Coach Graham showed me something that Michael was doing to me that I could easily counter. In our next match, I completely took Michael off guard, hit the move on him and damn near pinned him. I surprised both myself, him and his coach with a 7-2 victory. Coach Graham wasn't surprised though. "You're too nice of a guy Steve," He said to me for the 10,000th time in a row, "You don't realize how good you could be." In our next match, Bucklin was prepared for me to try the move on him again and this time recounted my counter. He defeated me in over time again, this time 9-7.
I thought it was really cool being Michael's only loss for the season. My Dad and Coach Graham kept reminding me that if it wasn't for me, he'd be going into the AAU's undefeated. I suppose I never saw myself as good enough to win the AAU tournament, even though many people at the tournament were picking Bucklin to win it. I even heard my name mentioned a few times.
I made it to the quarter-finals and realized that if I won this match, I was going to be an AAU place winner. I think the excitement and nervousness was too much for me to handle. Against a kid named Jeff Tucker, I ended up getting thrown to my back and pinned in the third period. My hopes for an AAU title were over.
After the quarterfinal match, my Dad took me over to the award stand and told me that if I won my next match I got to stand on it, but if I didn't, then I didn't get to stand on it.
I can't tell you how relieved and happy I was when the referee slapped the mat and I won by fall in my Round of twelve match to medal. I'm sure as soon as I won, Dad and Coach Graham had a bronze medal in mind, but all I gave a shit about was getting to stand on that award stand.
Sure enough though, I dominated back through the consolation bracket. I pinned my opponent in the consolation quarterfinals and then I defeated my opponent 13-0 major decision in the consolation semi-finals. My opponent in the consolation finals? Jeff Tucker, who had pinned me in the quarterfinals.
Before our match, Coach Graham had me watch video out our first match. He showed me what Tucker did and the mistakes I had made during the match. I went out onto the mat, knowing that I was going to win. I had an answer for everything that Tucker tried on me and took a 6-0 victory.
To this day it is the greatest feeling I've ever had in my life. I've searched low, I've searched high, I've searched everywhere to equal that feeling again and 21 years later I sometimes fear that I will never experience anything like it ever again. I had done something important. I was somebody. My name meant something. I was third place in the AAU. Michael Bucklin ended up taking second.
Standing in third place on the award stand and listening to my name being read over the loud speaker, to the loud cheers of the Osky crowd and others in the arena that knew me is the closest I may ever come to paradise. How proud my Dad was and how Coach Graham kept mentioning, "Steve coming back to take third place was huge" when people asked him what lead team Oskaloosa to a team AAU title. They are all bittersweet memories.
YEAR FIVE:
While still successful, fifth grade wasn't as successful as I wrestled 5th and 6th graders, as the year before I wrestled 3rd and 4th graders. I still had a winning record, but had a lot more losses. Michael Bucklin and I split matches throughout the year and he once again finished better than me at the AAU's.
I went 2-2. Winning my first match, then being pinned by Charles Schowalter of Cedar Rapids Prairie in the second period. Schowalter taught me an important lesson about never judging a book by its cover. Truth is, he looked like a panzy. He was very short, very fat and he looked like he couldn't whip his way out of a wet paper bag. Yet when we got on the mat, it was him who was kicking my ass! He sunk in a half so deep and so tight that I couldn't even remotely fight it off. After the match, my Dad said he was embarrassed that I had lost to him. I came back to win my next match, and then ended up getting pinned by Marcus "Buddy" Lewis in my next match. We were tied 2-2 when Buddy locked up a bearhug and threw me to the mat. As I sat in the stands, Dad reminded me that if Lewis won he'd be a place winner and if Bucklin won he'd be a place winner too. Lewis lost his next match and failed to place. Bucklin would have to beat Schowalter in order to place.
"You watch." Dad said to me, "Bucklin will probably kill this kid, and you'll really feel stupid getting pinned by him."
Schowalter pinned Bucklin faster than he pinned me!
If I remember correctly I think Schowalter ended up placing 5th. Years later I ran into Schowalter at the state tournament where he placed 7th his junior year. I didn't recognize him at all as he was now tall and extremely skinny. It just goes to show how much people can change.
YEAR SIX:
This would be my last successful year as an amateur wrestler. I suppose I was fairly successful in 7th grade as well, but this is the last year of my wrestling career when I have any hardware to show for it. Once again Michael Bucklin was my main adversary and we exchanged wins and losses a various amount of times throughout the season. All of our matches had always been fairly close, but I suppose I was really "on" one day when he was really "off." I defeated Michael 12-4 at a tournament, it was the most scoring that ever took place in our matches. It'd be Michael who got the last laugh though. He defeated me for a district title and he'd once again finish higher than me at the AAU's.
The AAU's that year were quite interesting for me. It taught me the value of understanding parity and why you should never take anyone too lightly or psyche yourself out because your worried about how good someone is.
As luck would have it, I drew Tade Kracklio of Wilton in the first round who was the defending AAU champion at 140 lbs. I think I could have actually opened up and defeated him by a larger margin but I wrestled very conservatively, scored a takedown in the second period and then took a stall call for a 2-1 victory. In the second round I pinned my opponent.
In the quarter finals I took on Gabe Vince who pinned me in the third period and would go on to defeat Bucklin in the finals. I knew I had to win my next match in order to be a place winner.
I won my round of 12 match easily pinning my opponent in the first period. My next match was against Marcus "Buddy" Lewis who had pinned me in the consolations the year before. I knew if Lewis defeated me again, I'd be wrestling for 7th and 8th. I took Lewis down right away for a 2-0 lead and then in the second period reversed him straight to his back pinning him. In the consolation semi-finals I would take on Bob Swift. Bucklin had defeated Swift in the semi-finals 3-1 sudden victory, so it was expected that Swift and I would be a very good match. No scoring took place in the first period and in the second period, I reversed him straight to his back pinning him.
Bucklin had defeated Todd Parrish of Lenox in the quarter finals 3-0, so I thought I could beat him myself but I ended up settling for 4th place after Parrish handled me solidly in a 7-2 defeat.
Nevertheless it still felt pretty good to take 4th place at the AAU's. It'd be the last good feeling I had in my life for a long, long period of time.
YEAR SEVEN:
This is a story I've told 10,000 times before and a story that replays itself in my mind every day of my life. Some days it depresses me. Some days it motivates me. Some days it makes me angry. Some days it doesn't make me feel anything, but I still think about it. I've learned to channel it into a positive energy as best as I can, but it's not a said and done deal. It never will be. I'll battle it till the day I die.
I never knew a time when my parents got along. There were moments where they seemed to like one another, but they were few and far between. I remember a weekend at Lake Darling in Brighton that was pleasant and I recall Christmas of 1989, when my parents seemed to actually like one another for a brief moment. Other than that though, most of my memories are of them yelling at one another. I grew up thinking for a long time that it was normal for a mom and dad to hate each other.
In 1991 my parents had a very bitter divorce and they would spend the next 16 years doing all they could to pit me against the other. There was no greater approval I could earn from my Dad than to be hateful towards my mother and there was no greater approval I could earn from my mom than to be hateful towards my father. I suppose it would still be that way today, if I hadn't have sat both of them down back when I was 22 and made it very clear how things were going to be from now on. It occurred to me one day that I was an adult. I didn't have to deal with this crap anymore. I drove over to over to both of their houses and told them I had something to say.
"Look," I said, "I know you hate my dad/mom and that you always will. That's fine, but if you have something negative to say about them, don't say it around me. I'm not listening to it anymore."
It took a while for both of them to catch on that I was being serious. I was no longer a tool or a weapon to use in their never ending war. To this day there are times when they'll say to me, "Your Dad/Mom said this about me." I'll respond, "I don't know anything about it." They'll respond back to me, "Well I know he/she said this because your sister told me." I'll respond, "That's great, he/she didn't say it around me." And that's the truth. Both of them know not to bad mouth the other around me, or I'll get up and leave and I won't come back. I've gone months without speaking to either one. They used me as leverage against the other for nearly two decades, I'm a 30 year old man, I am done with that shit.
In 1994 my mom met and began dating Barry Lee. My mom would marry Barry in February of 1996 and seeing how my life was at the time, I never gave Barry the time of day. I still deal with guilt issues because of it, because Barry has been one of the most positive influences on my life. He's helped me out in a variety of ways and it's hard for me to swallow the fact that I was so negative towards him for such a long period of time.
I wanted to live with my Dad and thus began a big long custody battle. During this time my mom and Barry got pregnant and announced that they were going to have a baby. I hated the idea and for some reason thought that it would be the reason I ended up having to stay living with my mother. As a result, I hated someone that I didn't even know. I told my mom that when it was born I didn't want it to call me brother. I didn't want it to even acknowledge that I existed. I was going to leave it alone and it was going to leave me alone. I hated it and I always would.
On the night my mom went to deliver the baby, it died and she nearly died too. March 3rd, 1998 is in many ways the most important moment that ever happened in my life. It has had a huge effect on my life ever since and it still influences my life to this day. I'll never forget being woken up that morning and being told that Sydney Rochelle Lee died during childbirth. It's been 17 1/2 years, but in many ways it feels like it happened earlier this morning.
My friend Richard Huffman was shot during the Vietnam war. I asked him what being shot felt like. He told me that at first it hits you and you go into shock. You don't feel a thing. It's completely numb and it takes a while for the pain to set in. That's how it was for me when Sydney died. I felt nothing for the longest time. I was completely numb. I smiled when I was told to smile in pictures, but that was it. As far as a smile because I found something funny or because it was genuine, it never happened. I'd sometimes become conscious of the fact that people would notice that I wouldn't laugh and I wouldn't smile and I'd smile for the sake of it alone. I never smiled because I was happy
though. I couldn't. I didn't feel emotions at that time.
I think that's why I was still able to manage a fairly successful season as a wrestler. I was 12-4 on the junior high team and I once again qualified for the AAU's. At the AAU's I went 0-2 in a very tough bracket that saw two very good wrestlers not even place.
Kory Morrow who had whipped me three times during the season including 14-0 our first match, 12-2 our second match and 8-2 our last match went 2-2. Jordan Swayne who I had began to close the gap on, also went 2-2. I thought Kory would win the bracket. Justin Jordan, who ended up being a three time high school state place winner, only ended up taking 4th place.
After the numbness went away, the pain of Sydney's death settled in. The guilt was unbearable. I realized that I had said what I had said and worse yet, I had felt what I had felt. There was no saying I was sorry or taking it back. It was too late for that. I needed to do something. I needed to prove myself. I didn't know what else to do at the time, so when I went out to visit her grave site with my mom, I put my hand on her tombstone and promised her that I was going to earn her a medal from the high school state wrestling championships. It's the most serious promise I have ever made in my life.
YEAR EIGHT:
I had my sights set on winning a title in my last year of wrestling the AAU's. I knew it was going to be tough, so I began working harder than I had ever worked. At practices, I would always try and wrestle with Ryan Bixler and other guys in the room that I knew were really good. At tournaments I would have my Dad try and put me into the toughest bracket possible. I was bound and determined that I was going to do as well as I could.
At practices, I would have fierce battles with a kid from Centerville named Cody Kauzlarich. We wrestled each other at an early season tournament and he beat me 8-6 sudden victory. One night at practice, we were short a few mats in the practice room due to Oskaloosa having a high school dual meet. Kauzlarich threw me with a lateral drop and I landed right on the unpaded cement, hard.
I didn't realize how badly I was injured at the time but playing football that year, I noticed that there were times when my back would kill me. One night while doing homework my back began to hurt me so bad that I fell on the floor and began crying. I couldn't move.
It took forever to find out what was wrong with me, but I had cracked my L-5 in my back. In all sense of reality, I should have had surgery right then and right there, but I refused because I knew I'd miss the rest of the season. So instead, I sat out until districts and tried making a comeback.
In an eight man bracket, I won my first match and then I would face familiar opponent Cody Kauzlarich in the semi-finals. It'd be the match that would define the rest of my career. I was expecting another fierce battle like the one we had at the beginning of the year. Kauzlarich annihilated me, 10-1. I remember his Dad coming up to me later on and saying, "At least you didn't get pinned" as if I were supposed to be proud of my self for lasting the whole match.
Here I had wanted to win the AAU's and if I didn't win my next match, I wasn't even going to qualify. Wrestling a kid from Fairfield, I was down 4-0 with about 30 seconds left to go in the 3rd period. I somehow managed to score a 5 point move at the very end to qualify with a 5-4 victory.
My back hurt me so bad though, that I ended up forfeiting my next match to Clay Wells of WACO and settled for a 4th place finish.
As badly as I wanted to wrestle at the AAU's, I had to be carried out of the gymnasium at districts and I went in for surgery a short time later. Kauzlarich took 5th at the AAU's. Andrew Anderson who went on to wrestle for Northern Iowa won the bracket and Andy Fry, who would turn out to be a good friend of mine throughout high school ended up taking 2nd.
My friend Michael Bucklin who was also hoping to win the AAU's in a bracket above me, ended up finishing one match away from placing.
YEAR NINE:
People who know me and my love/passion for wrestling are often surprised to learn that I had a rather disappointing high school wrestling career. They expect me to have at least been somewhat good considering that I am so enthusiastic about the sport. I wish I could tell them that I was as good at they imagined me to have been, but I wasn't. My final career record was 65-70. A few solid wins here and there, scatted among even fewer upsets and we define the highlights of my high school wrestling days.
I'm asked all the time, "Why weren't you any good?" And I know damn good and well the answer that fellow wrestlers, coaches and fans want to hear. For some it's the only answer they'll accept, but I'm not going to say it. I refuse to say it because it isn't true. I will not say, "because I didn't work hard enough" because I did work hard enough. I worked extremely hard. Anyone who knew me during that time knows that it is true. The football coach at Sigourney, a guy who never liked me, even said that he was sorry to hear that I had been beaten out of sectionals my senior year. I was told that he said, "I don't care for that kid, but he worked his ass off." A girl in my class that didn't like me then and doesn't like me now said that even she got sick to her stomach knowing I had taken 3rd at sectionals and not qualified for districts.
If that isn't enough to convince you, maybe the fact that I won the hardest working wrestler of the year award my freshman, junior and senior years of high school will be. Coach Jeff Kirby ran some of the toughest practices around, and I was always the one who gave it the most effort in practice. He'll say so and so will all of my teammates. I wasn't given those awards for the Hell of it. I earned them.
So why wasn't I good?
A lot of people want to point a finger at my Coach Jeff Kirby and lay the blame on him. That couldn't be further from the truth. They want to say that if I had better coaching that I would have been much better, but that is frankly complete bullshit. Coach Kirby put his heart and soul into me, teaching me as much as he could and working with me. He couldn't have put any more effort into me than what he did, because he already put everything into me. You don't know what I'd give to be able to go back in time with the knowledge, courage and confidence I had today and win him a couple of district titles and state qualifications. I'm not going to kid myself and say, "State titles" because I don't think I could have ever been that good.
I wasn't good for a variety of different reasons, first and foremost because of my mental state at the time. I was severely depressed at the time, even at times suicidal. I think if I hadn't have made the promise to Sydney, I may have ended my life at that time. It was a depression that would stay with me until I was finally able to overcome it in June of 2007. It's not like it was a final battle between the two of us either. The demon of depression still comes for me from time to time, but unlike the period of time in my life where he was constantly beating me, I find myself kicking his ass most of the time now.
It's a wonder as mentally messed up as I was, that I even did as well as I did.
Another factor that came into play was my lack of upper body strength. If you saw me in the weight room today, you'd probably think I was lying to you. I bench press 350 lbs and I military press 215 lbs. I use the 125 lbs dumbells when I do chest press. I know plenty of people that STILL make me look like a pussy in the gym, but I plan on being able to bench press 400 lbs by April. Not bad for a guy who weighs 210 lbs at the moment.
In high school I wasn't able to lift jack squat. My senior year my max bench press was 175 lbs and I had to have someone spot me on that.
After my back injury, my surgeon, Dr. Ernest Found at the University of Iowa told me that powercleans, squats and deadlifts could possibly cause me to re-injure my back and could even lead to permanent injury. He said that if I injured my back again, I could end up in a wheel chair the rest of my life.
The idea of being in a wheel chair the rest of my life scared me to death. So I never did powercleans, deadlifts and squats. I was told by others that if I didn't do these particular lifts, then I might as well forget about being strong. I wouldn't learn until later, that they were full of shit, but I believed them at the time.
I lifted weights everyday. Only I did the same things every day. I didn't understand the concept of allowing your muscles to rest and hitting different body parts on different days. I also didn't understand the concept of adding weight. I simply put the same amount of weight on the barbell/dumbbell and I'd do that weight as many times as I could until failure. Needless to say, I had excellent conditioning, but I was extremely weak.
My Dad had also broken up with his girlfriend at the time and he himself went into a deep dark depression. He dealt with his depression in a different way than I deal with mine. It was a very
negative environment. Pessimistic and depressing.
Pompous morons like Matt Holt can try and tell the world that I didn't succeed at wrestling because, "He was lazy and didn't work hard enough" but that wasn't the case with me. If I had the right mind set, the positive attitude and confidence I have today, with the knowledge of strength training I have today, I would have been good. How good? I don't know, but winning record/state qualification good for sure.
My freshman year of high school I was 11-17. My favorite memory of high school was getting to be on the team with Adam Graham. I had always looked up to Adam ever since I was little and the more I got to know him the more of a hero he became to me. A couple of months before wrestling practice began, I found Adam in the hallway and told him that I wanted to start training with him. I think at first he thought I would run/lift/workout with him a couple of times and then quit. He'd find out soon enough that he had actually up his game a bit, to keep himself one step ahead of me.
Adam had won the hardest working wrestler of the year his sophomore season, but his junior season he was "robbed of it" by the friggin freshman, me! He came back to beat me out for the award his senior season and I give him shit for it because I feel I should have been a four time hardest working wrestler of the year, but Adam Graham "robbed me" of it my sophomore season.
Highlights for me included taking state qualifier Nick Griffith of Grinnell into overtime, losing 6-4 at the North Mahaska duals. I also lost a 13-10 wild match with Jesse Mateer of Montezuma who ended up being one match shy of qualifying for districts. Mateer defeated a state qualifier from the year before in a wild first round upset. It gave me confidence going into my sophomore season.
YEAR TEN:
My sophomore year, 2001-2002 was by certain the most unsuccessful and disappointing year of my wrestling career and one of the worst years of my life. Averaging 21-27 miles a week running, and doing lifting routines that were far more detrimental than beneficial at the gym everyday, I began looking around for the best wrestling camps in the area. After some extensive research, I told my Dad that I wanted to attend the University of Iowa's 12 day intense wrestling camp. I heard from others that it was one of the toughest camps around and if you wanted to be the best, it was a must attend camp.
Realize that my Dad came to me and asked me where I wanted to go on vacation that summer. I had opportunities to go to Canada fishing and to New Jersey to visit family. Instead I told my dad I wasn't interested in going on vacation. I wanted to attend Iowa's 12 day intense camp.
After attending the camp and being surrounded by some of the best high school wrestlers from Ohio, Pennsylvania, California, Illinois and even a group of kids from Japan, I had very big expectations for myself.
I attended four freestyle practices a week during freestyle season. I went to Ottumwa's freestyle club on Monday's and Wednesdays and I went to Oskaloosa's freestyle club on Tuesday's and Thursdays. On the weekends, I'd attend local freestyle tournaments. If anyone wants to knock me for anything that I should have done, I will admit that I made a mistake by focusing solely on freestyle. If I had to do it over again, I would have tapped into Greco-Roman as well. It would have been more difficult, seeing that Ottumwa was strictly a freestyle club and that Oskaloosa only had a handful of kids that were doing Greco. I may have had to have gone to Iowa City or somewhere else for Greco-Roman instruction. I don't know for sure, because I didn't do it.
I also attended the University of Nebraska's team camp with my team. I had a fairly successful showing, wrestling at about 165 lbs while at the camp. I wrestled better than I had my entire freshman season and sometimes wonder if I'd have been better off staying at such a weight, instead of dropping 20 lbs to wrestle 145.
I went into my sophomore season with high expectations. I honestly thought as hard as I'd been working that I was going to qualify for state that season. I had wrestled at freestyle state and even though Brandon Mason, the State champion from Lewis Central Council Bluffs earned a 11-1 technical fall over me, I still felt pretty good about myself. That 1 point I had earned was from a takedown in the first period. I thought to myself that if I can take down Brandon Mason, a state champion, then I can do anything.
Boy was I wrong.
Right before wrestling season began, my Dad broke up with his girlfriend Vickie, who he had found out had been cheating on him. He went into a deep, dark bitter and angry depression. I tried to not let it bother me, but it did. I love my father very much, and it was him that forked up the money for gas to and from freestyle practices/tournaments. It was him that paid for wrestling camps. I don't ignore that and I'm not unappreciative. I have gratitude, and that gratitude is not diminished by recognizing the negative environment that his depression put both of us in. I had a hard time forgiving my Dad for a long period of time for being so negative and pessimistic and I think he's had even a harder time forgiving himself. I let completely go of that anger about 8 years ago. I realize it wasn't intentional or on purpose and that it isn't what he wanted. Alanis Morrisette sings in the song, Thank You "How good it feels to finally forgive you" and every time I hear those lyrics I think about that.
I only won 14 matches my sophomore year and I lost 25. I actually started the season off fairly good, defeating Belle Plaine's Brandon Kurvoski 9-3 and then defeating BGM's Kevin Kurvoski 6-3. Then I lost 10-4 to North Mahaska's Joel DeVore and it was all down hill from there.
"It's only his third year ever wrestling." My Dad said after he found out that DeVore had only wrestled in 8th, 10th and now 12th grades, "You have so much more experience than him. You can't beat him, you might as well forget about going to state."
DeVore pinned me at our next meeting and the putdowns got even worse. I had no self esteem and no confidence at all. When I was little winning and losing never meant anything to my Dad. All he had asked of me was to try my best and always show good sportsmanship. I never once, in my entire career showed bad sportsmanship. Not once. Even when I couldn't stand the kid I was wrestling, which happened 1/2 a dozen times or so during my career, I still showed good sportsmanship. When I was little, losses never bothered me. I'd simply look at what I did wrong and continuously try and improve. Jordan Swayne of Twin Cedars pinned me in our first meeting and then he beat me 12-2. Throughout the season we kept getting closer and closer. In our final match, Swayne beat me 4-2 sudden victory.
Coach Kirby and Coach Jarmes tried their best to instill confidence back in me. Coach worked on me with what DeVore did and we went over it again and again and again.
The next time I met DeVore at the North Mahaska duals, I threw him straight to his back and damn near pinned him. It lit a fire in me and the rest of the match we went back and forth. He won 11-10. Coach Kirby was very happy with me, because I went after DeVore and didn't let the fact that he had whipped me twice keep me from being offensive.
It didn't impress my Dad any though.
Coach Kirby never came right out and said it, but I know he wanted to tell me to not care at all what my Dad was saying to me and to focus on what he was telling me instead. I wish I could have done that. I wish I was smart enough to have done that at the time. Yet, like a lot of sons, pleasing my father meant everything in the world to me and knowing that I was embarrassing him and disappointing him was killing me.
A lot of kids made fun of me and laughed at me because I was so strait laced. I never partied or drank a beer in high school and I only had one girlfriend. I was called a faggot and people talked behind my back thinking I was gay. I suppose it was because I never showed a lot of interest in girls during that time. I had interest. I had a lot of interest. I simply never acted on it.
"I ever catch you drinking a beer, or even being near other people who are drinking beer, your wrestling days are done." My Dad would tell me about every other night, "You ever think about having sex with a girl or even coming close, I'll yank your ass off that wrestling team faster than you can blink Jack."
That's all it took for me to walk the straight and narrow and do my best to get the best grades I could. I got away with getting C's in Math because Dad knew how difficult math was, but anything lower than a B- in any other subject and the threat of being yanked off the wrestling team was brought up.
Coach Kirby tried telling me once that my Dad couldn't keep me from wrestling, but I didn't believe him. He told me when I told him once that my Dad has said that to me, that he would go and talk to my Dad about it. I begged him not to, he never said a word to my Dad about it and the subject was never brought up again.
In our next meeting, DeVore defeated me 12-11 at the SICL conference quarterfinals. I then came back and pinned Caleb Schaffner from English Valleys and then lost to Kurvoski from BGM 8-6 who I had defeated earlier 6-3. I finished in 6th place. Not a good showing at all.
Even though I was having a horrible season as a wrestler, I was still somewhat enjoying it. I had always made a lot of friends wrestling, and I still kept the "Enemy on the mat, friend off the mat" mentality. After I was done wrestling, I sat around with Schaffner and DeVore in the cafeteria as all three of us split a rice crispie treat and then joked about how we were going to have to all run 3 or 4 miles later on to work it off.
The first couple of times I had wrestled against Iowa Valley's Darys Kreigel, he had beaten me pretty good. He pinned me in the dual meet my freshman year and then he scored a technical fall 15-0 against me at the conference tournament that year as well. During the summer, I lost to him 10-2 at a freestyle tournament. When I faced him my sophomore year, I realized that he scored most of his points on me from the top position. Coach Kirby and worked on defenses to his tilts and his putting in the legs for two weeks solid.
Against Iowa Valley that night, I was the final match. All I had to do for Sigourney to win was to not get pinned. The defense that Coach Kirby and I had worked on, worked. I had also scored two takedowns on Kreigel during the match as well. Down 6-5 with about 30 seconds left to go in the match, I suppose the smart thing to do would have been to ride it out and be happy with a one point loss. Had I have done that, we would have broken the school record for dual meet wins in a season. Instead, I wanted to be a hero and win 7-6. I went for a takedown and Kreigel hit a neckwrench taking me straight to my back. He pinned me at 5:58. Two seconds.
Already feeling awful, I went home to be kept up until about 1:00 a.m. being yelled and screamed at that I was a disappointment to myself, to him, to my teammates, to my coaches, to the school and to the community of Sigourney. The next time I met Kreigel in a match, I didn't do nearly as good. This time I lost 8-3, scoring only one takedown.
At sectionals DeVore would win our final confrontation in a 13-9 decision. Going for a reversal in the second period, DeVore whipped me back to my back and scored 3 points. In the third period, I cut him after he had chosen down. Down 6-0, I scored 9 points trying to make a come back but it was too little too late and he held on for a 13-9 victory, including getting the final takedown countering my piss poor shot.
YEAR ELEVEN:
Many people thought that I took the sport way too seriously and that I needed to learn to relax. Listening to their advice, I went into my junior season with a completely different attitude. I still worked my ass off, but my mentality was different. I attended Iowa State's wrestling camp and Nebraska's team camp once again. I still went to Osky and Ottumwa two times a week. I'll also add in since I forgot to earlier that after freestyle season was over, Coach Kirby had open gym wrestling practices 3 times a week. The only reason I ever missed one was because I was attending a wrestling camp. Other than that I never missed.
Every year Coach Kirby had us right down our goals at the beginning of the season. As a sophomore I wrote down, "State Champion" and after a 14-25 season, I figured it probably wasn't a good idea to write that down again my junior year. I didn't know what to write, so I simply wrote, "Be the hardest worker in the room and have fun."
Towards the middle of the season, we were playing pick-up basketball as a means to cut weight when I went for a layup and came down funny on my leg. I'd come to find out in a visit t the doctor the next day that I had torn my groin. It kept me out of two dual meets and a tournament. Luck be have it, as soon as I healed from my torn groin, I'd turn around and tear my left bicep. It also kept me out of a couple of tournaments and dual meets, including the Hudson tournament. My dad thought I was skipping out on the Hudson tournament because I was scared of the competition. He still thought that when the doctor made it clear that I had torn my bicep.
Even though I missed about half the season due to injuries, I still had a few memorable moments. I earned my first medal at the SICL tournament with a third place finish. I wrestled former state qualifier Steve Carl, who would go on to be a star in MMA to an 11-7 decision. If it hadn't been for a fatal mistake in the second period getting caught up in a Peterson roll, I would have taken him into overtime. Carl was a great wrestler, and would miss a second qualification to State in a heartbreaking true 2nd place match at the district tournament. He told me years later when we met at the Iowa State fair that he hated wrestling me because he knew that I was coming after him a full 6 minutes.
In all sense of reality, I should have joined Carl at the district tournament but I of course defeated myself before I even stepped on the mat. I think sometimes in wrestling, wrestlers have too much respect for one another. I'd always thought of Ryan Lewis of Lynnville Sully as a really good wrestler and I don't think I gave myself enough credit in the idea that I could beat him. Leading 4-3 in the third period with only seconds left to go at the sectional tournament, Lewis took me down for a 5-4 victory. It's one of the many matches I had during my career that will forever haunt me.
I'd also meet the guy who would end my wrestling career my junior year as well. Daniel Garrett from Cardinal. I took a shot on him and he cow-catcher threw me straight to my back pinning me in a matter of seconds. It was simply him catching me off a bad shot, but it made me scared to death of him.
My most memorable match during my junior year was my last one of the season against Iowa Valley's Wade Kimm. I had defeated Kimm 11-6 in a dual meet and was winning quite comfortably, when Kimm hit his signature headlock on me for a 5 point move. After fighting off my back, I looked at the score and knew I had some catching up to do. In the third period, I lit Kimm up takedown after takedown. By the end of regulation I had tied the score at 10-10. I was pumped and ready to head into sudden victory. I knew I was going to earn a 12-10 victory.
Yet, instead of going into overtime, the Iowa Valley coaches began to question the score table and the referee. Both Kimm and I were told to go to our corners. I was so caught up in the moment that I hadn't taken the time to look around at the crowd. A chant began saying, "Let's go Steve! Let's go Steve" and I figured that since the tournament was being held at Belle Plaine, that they were chanting for Steve Carl. Yet when I looked over on the finals mat, Steve Carl was already done wrestling. He had pinned Ryan Lewis. When they said, "Steve" they meant Stephen Stonebraker. They were cheering for me.
I have to admit it was exciting. Not only were Sigourney fans cheering for me, Belle Plaine fans and English Valleys fans were cheering for me too. I remember Coach Jarmes saying to me, "Stay focused. Set him up and get the takedown. As soon as you score, this place is going to explode."
A few moments later the referee called Kimm and I back to the mat. Only instead of blowing the whistle for us to wrestle, he told us to shake hands. He then raised Kimm's hand. Somehow in all of the action that took place in the third period, the score table hadn't seen him signal a point for one of Kimm's escapes. Kimm won the match 11-10.
The crowd erupted in a chorus of boos. I shook Kimm's hand again, patted him on the back and told him good job. Coach Jarmes and Coach Kirby went to bat on my behalf, but my opinion was that if I didn't want to lose, I shouldn't have gotten thrown to my back in the second period. I walked to the locker room, as people I didn't even know came up to me and patted me on the back. "You were screwed Stonebraker." They'd say to me.
To be honest, I felt worse for having lost to Lewis in the semi-finals than I did losing to Kimm for third place. I knew I should have taken 2nd place and qualified for districts and that's what disappointed me. Sitting in the locker room feeling like crap, I was in the process of taking off my singlet when suddenly I heard, "Stephen."
I looked up and it was Jack Smith, Sigourney's legendary wrestling coach from 1963-1988 who led Sigourney to multiple second and third place finishes at the State tournament.
"You handled yourself with a lot of class and dignity out on the mat. You could have acted like a fool and instead you acted like man. No tears. Keep your head up."
That meant a lot to me. Coach Smith for years seemed almost God-like to me because of all of his accomplishments, and now he was complimenting me. That was pretty cool. Actually it was very cool.
During the summer, I again wrestled freestyle and ended up driving myself to a few tournaments. During a match at the Central College Freestyle Open, I was tied at 6-6 when the referee told us to go to our corner for our rest period. I began to walk to what I thought was my corner, when I saw this guy standing there. I figured I must have accidentally walked towards my opponents corner but when I turned around, my opponent was talking with his coaches in his corner.
I turned to my corner again and the guy was waving me to come towards him.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"It doesn't matter who I am." He said to me, "Look, this kid is tired and he's not expecting much action to take place. Surprise him. Hit him with a blast double and then go for a turn immediately. He'll never know what hit him."
I nodded, went out onto the mat, did exactly what he told me to do and won the match 9-6 to earn a bronze medal.
When I went to go thank him for his advice, he was already gone. I found out later, when I asked around about him that he was a varsity wrestler on the William Penn University Wrestling team.
The last thing I'll say about my junior season is that I had a girlfriend for a short period of time. Shelly Olson admitted that she had a crush on me and I dated her for 3 months. I broke up with her because I wanted to concentrate more on wrestling and my studies. If I had to do it all over again, I would have continued dating her. She was a great girl and I wish I would have treated the situation better. Yet, I also remember how things were then and they are different than they are today.
I ended my junior season 13-12.
YEAR TWELVE: The Final Year
I entered my senior season with a 38-54 record. I knew I had to win at least 16 matches to even break even with my record and that it was going to be impossible to reach 100 wins, even if I went undefeated.
Over the summer I met and befriended Dave Rempe, who owned and operated Dave's weight club in Oskaloosa, Iowa. Meeting him had a huge positive impact on my career. I told him my lifting routine and that I had been told that without doing powercleans, squats and deadlifts that I couldn't get strong. Dave laughed at that and said, "Bullshit, I'll get you strong." Dave showed me a series of techniques and tips and I improved my strength a great deal. Of course it was too little, too late though. I wish that I would have met him earlier in life, but I didn't. Mowing lawns all summer, I bought a weight set for $1,200. It was the first major investment that I ever spent a major amount of my own money on.
Instead of attending wrestling camp, I decided to find someone really good to train me. Dave McLaughlin a former Sigourney wrestler, came over to my house a few times to work on technique with me and my Dad hired NCAA Champion Mark Ironside to train me for 8 weeks as well. During football season, I drove up to Iowa City two times a week to train with Mark Ironside and some of the best wrestlers in the state. Mitch Mueller and Dan LeClere were two of them. One night I wrestled with Mueller for about two hours straight. I took him down three times. He took me down 3,000 times. Another guy who trained with us was Omar Miktabi, who was going to attend the University of Michigan the next year. Miktabi had finished 2nd the year before in a 1-0 loss to Brandon Mason. Believe it or not, I could occasionally turn Miktabi to his back despite him usually kicking the shit out of me.
My senior year was without a doubt my best year, full of quite a few ups. Don't get me wrong, I had my fair share of downs too and it all ended on a sour note but at least I got to have a few good times to look back on.
Among my downs included losing to George Zacharias-Jutz at the Mount Vernon tournament. If I had defeated him, I would have gotten to have faced state champion Moza Fay in the semi-finals. I was excited about getting to wrestled Fay. He would have either pinned me or tech-falled me but the idea that I might have caught him off guard and scored on him excited me. Of course it didn't happen because Jutz beat me 5-1. I came back winning two matches, but then dropped a 3-2 match to Jutz again in the consolation finals. Jutz would go on to be a three time state qualifier, including a 6th place finish, so maybe I shouldn't feel as bad as I do about that.
We all have our favorite matches and we all have our least favorite matches during our career. Both happened for me as a senior. Earlier in the season, I defeated 2003 sectional champion Brett Allison of Tri-County 14-4. Then at the Oskaloosa duals I was beating him 9-4, when he threw me in a headlock and pinned me. I was so mad at myself and depressed about losing that I put my street clothes back on and told Coach Kirby that I wasn't feeling well and didn't want to wrestle the rest of the day.
Coach Jarmes asked me to go into the locker room with him because he wanted to talk to me about something. As soon as we got into the locker room, he calmly told me to sit down and then he looked around the room, picked up the nearest trashcan and threw it up against the lockers. He then grabbed it again threw it across the room, took off on a sprint and kicked it. Trash went all over the floor.
I don't remember everything he said, but I do know that he used some words I had never heard him say before and I've never heard him say since. "Can you do something for me that you've never done in your entire career?"
He didn't wait for me to answer as he said to me, "Wrestle. Just go out their and wrestle."
I went from being scared of him to now being confused, "I've wrestled for you for the last 3 1/2 years."
"No you haven't." He said back to me, "You either win or you lose. That's what you do. You go out on the mat to win or you go out on the mat to not lose. Not this time. This next match, you are going to wrestle and that's exactly what you're going to do. Don't care about what your Dad thinks, don't care about what Coach Kirby thinks, don't care about what I think. Wrestle. Just wrestle."
I promised him I would and it ended up being the best match I ever wrestled in my life.
I didn't know anything about Troy Smith of Pella when I stepped on the mat with him. No thoughts went through my mind either. I simply went out on the mat and I wrestled. Winning and losing meant nothing to me. All that mattered was that I was going to try and score at every opportunity
that presented itself. Nailing my favorite wrestler Johnny Thompson's "the snake" I defeated Smith 9-6. After the match was over, I came to find out that the Predicament had Smith ranked #10 in Class 2A. It was the only time in my career I defeated a ranked opponent.
At the SICL tournament I was taking revenge against Allison as I entered the 3rd period with a 8-4 lead. Of course being the dumbass that I am, I went for a granby roll, got caught in the middle of it and pinned with only seconds remaining in the match. I could have been a two time SICL conference bronze medalist, but instead I ended up getting pinned.
Other ups for me that year were getting a victory over Ty Bartholomew of Van Buren, who missed the state tournament by one match taking 3rd at districts. Bartholomew and I met twice that season with me winning our first meeting 13-9 and him winning our second 11-9. I love watching our matches because we go back and forth the entire time. Our finals match at the Mid-Prairie classic was itself a classic.
I also defeated Brian Martin of Lisbon, who had defeated me 13-3 the year before. I mention this because it goes to show how important and significant the strength training that Dave Rempe taught me over the summer was.
One of my favorite matches of the year was actually a loss. I wrestled Brandon Kurvoski of Belle Plaine, and I'll never forget what I overheard his coach say to him before our match.
"Don't take this Stonebraker lightly for a second. He goes hard a full six minutes. He's an attacker, don't give him anything or he'll take it."
I remember thinking to myself, "You damn right I'm an attacker."
Kurvoski and I had a hell of a good match. I took him down twice and if I would have had a bit more strength I think I could have turned it into a 4 point move because I had a deep half in, but I just couldn't turn him. I ended up losing 7-4.
They don't come very often but every now and again, you get second chances. With 17 dual meet wins we once again had the opportunity to break the school record for dual meet wins in a season. It once again came down to me. This time I didn't disappoint anyone and pinned my opponent in the second period. I don't have much to show for my career as a wrestler, but I can say that I was part of the team that broke the record.
Another highlight of the season for me was defeating Twin Cedars's Greg Ford by fall in a dual meet. On paper Ford should have beaten me, but I had known Ford for years and knew the type of wrestler that he was. I had even been in the same wrestling club as him when I was little. I knew my style would give him fits and it did. At the NCAA tournament the year before, I ran into one of my favorite wrestlers, Evan Sola of North Carolina and asked him how he got so good at the bar arm.
"Not many people can turn people with it as well as you can." I said to him.
"That's because they're not running it right." He said back to me.
He then told me the secret of making the bar arm work the way you want it to. Against Ford, I tried what Sola told me to do and next thing I know Ford lets out a scream, flips over to his back and the referee slaps the mat a few moments later.
At sectionals I let Daniel Garrett beat me 10-4. I swear everyone could beat Garrett but me and the only reason I didn't beat him is because I was afraid of him. Ford beat Garrett twice that year, once 10-6 and another time 11-7. Bartholomew also beat him. Jordan Terrill who beat me 9-6 in a close match defeated Garrett 12-0 and then 15-6.
After I lost to Garrett, and realized my wrestling career was over, I went back into a numb feeling. I was able to pin Brandon Ball of Columbus Junction who would go on to place 7th his junior year and then win a state title his senior year, for third place. Ball also was an All American his sophomore year wrestling for Coe College, placing 4th at the DIII NCAA tournament. He's told me for years that I got lucky against him and that I'd never beat him again. Maybe he's right.
11 years later, I'm finally over it and it's just another day to me I suppose but at the time I was devastated. I made a promise to Sydney that I was going to earn her a medal from the state tournament and I didn't even come close. It put me into a deep, dark depression that would last the next 3 years and four months. 18-21 years old was the darkest period of time in my life and I can only hope to never go through it again. I'd say more about it, but that's a different story for a different day.
My season ended at 26-16 and my wrestling career ended at 64-70. Considering how hard I worked, and as much time as I put into it, I was embarrassed and ashamed for many years. Mark Ironside once asked me, or better yet, told me to not mention that I had trained with him to anyone. I can't say I blame him.
That Monday morning, I slept in until about 7:30. It was the first time in 4 years when I hadn't woken up earlier to run. When I got to school Mr. Garles one of my teachers had a bought me a doughnut. He said I earned it.
Mr. G, our guidance counselor came up to me later on that day along with one of our janitors Mr. Shifflet and they both told me that when they got to school that morning something seemed off, something seemed wrong. Something wasn't right. After talking for a while, they decided that they had grown so accustomed to me running the halls every morning that they didn't know what to do when they didn't see me.
It entered my mind to not go to practice later that night and I damn near didn't go. Yet, when the time came, I think I went out of habit. I suppose maybe I shouldn't have, because I ended up tearing all of the ligaments in my ankle wrestling with Sean Stutzman and ended up on crutches for 3 months.
To end on a bit of humorous note, I'll share a story that happened at the Hudson wrestling tournament. After wrestling a match where I lost 12-7, I ended walked back to my corner and a girl was standing next to Coach Kirby. After talking with him for a second, this girl grabbed my t-shirt and shorts and handed them to me. I had no idea who she was. At first I thought she might be someone's sister or something but I came to find out that she was actually from Charles City. She hung out with me the rest of the tournament and made it clear that she was interested in me. If I was then who I am now, I would have taken advantage of it, but back then I was still scared of women. Especially if the woman was really good looking like she was. I wasn't sure what to make of it. It was a very awkward experience. She gave me her number and I tried calling her a few days later but she said that she didn't realize Sigourney was as far away from Charles City as it was and that was the end of that.
THE AFTER MATH
History doesn't occur in a vacuum and neither did my life.
People often like to ask me if I regret not wrestling in college and the answer is no. Not wrestling in college was one of the hardest decisions I have ever made in my life, but it was also one of the wisest. I suppose looking at how fat and out of shape I am now, and longing to look good or even decent again someday, it would have been nice to have had a few extra years of looking good. I'll also say that it would have been a privilege and honor to have wrestled with some of the guys on the Northwestern College wrestling team. There were three guys on that team who were jerks, and one of them I later found out was simply a matter of miscommunication. Another one, I never got a chance to get to know and the third is best summed up by saying that there are some people in life who are simply assholes and that's all there is to it. He was one of them.
Other guys on the team though were really cool. Dustin Farber sticks out the most among any of them. I'd gone into Coach Bartlett's office and told him of my situation. I explained to him as best I could and asked him if it'd be ok if I occasionally came into the room and to get a hold of me if he ever needed any help doing anything. I went to all of the dual meets and I promoted the wrestlers and the team as much as I could in various ways. Coach Bartlett had me help him with recruiting a few times and some other activities.
Dustin Farber came into my room nearly everyday and tried to talk me into coming out for the team. He bugged me about it constantly. I wish I could have been the person I am today back then, because I would have loved to have been on the team with him. I would have loved to have been teammates with him, Chris Keating, Matt Rosener, David Bray, Heath Beasley and Mark Perkins. It just wasn't right at the time.
I needed to discover that there was more t life than just wrestling. I needed to discover that there was life after wrestling. Whenever I hear the song, Landslide by Fleetwood Mac and I hear the lyrics, "I've been afraid of changing, because I belt my life around you" it makes me think of high school wrestling.
Yes, I do wish that things had been different for me at that time. If I could be who I am today and go back in time, I would have been a member of the Northwestern College wrestling team. I probably would have been a third string backup, but I would have been a member. Then again, it's hard to tell if that's exactly true or not. I was changing in a 1,000 different ways and going through a multitude o of experiences during that time of my life. Who knows what would have happened?
When I told my Dad that I had decided not to wrestle in college, it caused the biggest fight that the two of us had ever had. I told him that I was going to concentrate on other things. I had goals as an actor in theatre, I wanted to have more friends and I wanted to see if maybe I could get a girlfriend. He didn't like this idea and kept telling me, "You need to try it your freshman year and if you don't like it you don't have to do it again."
Who the Hell did he think he was talking to? I was Stephen Stonebraker, Three Time Hardest Working Wrestler of the year at Sigourney high school. There was no "try it." It was either do it and do it all the way through or don't do it at all.
He ended up filling out a survey for me and I ended up ripping the survey up right in front of him and throwing it in the trash. He came up to me and grabbed the collar of my shirt, pulling me towards him and then shoving me back.
"Don't touch me again." I don't know whether what I said shocked me or shocked him more. My entire life up until that point, I have never said such a thing to him before. He had always threatened me with taking wrestling away from me if I pissed him off for whatever reason and he couldn't do that anymore.
He went to grab me again and I took him straight to the floor with a bear-hug cracking the linoleum. We then wrestled around for a while longer and looking back I'm surprised I was able to do as well as I did. I only weighed 150 lbs or so at the time and he weighed 235.
We didn't speak to each other again for nearly a year and we'd go through a few more rough times over the next 5 years or so until we finally came to an understanding.
I think that fight between my Dad and me was the best thing that ever happened in our relationship. Matter of fact I know it is. I feel closer to my Dad today than I ever have. It took me a long time to forgive him for somethings and I think it took him a long time to forgive himself. I think it took even longer for him to realize that I'm my own person. I am not a miniature Randy. I have my own thoughts, my own views and my own beliefs. Once he learned to accept that, things have been good between us ever since.
I realize that throughout what I've written I sound negative about my Dad, but I'm simply telling things the way they happened. This is the life I lived and I don't want it sugarcoated, I want to state it the way that it happened. I'm not perfect. I've messed up a 1,000,000 times in my life and I will again. I don't hold anything against my Dad. He always did his best and I can't hold the fact that he had his own demons to deal with at that time against him. He's always been there for me whenever I needed him and he never missed a single competition that I ever competed in. He could have been out trying to get laid or doing something else, but he was always taking me to practices and tournaments. When I got involved in theatre in 7th grade, he was constantly taking me to practices and performances for that too.
I think sometimes people hear about someone's flaws or something negative that they did and leave it at that. I suppose I can't change people's opinions. I know speaking with a friend of mine not too long ago, he and another guy I know had brought me up in a conversation. He said the other guy said that he was always a very big fan of mine and that I would have been a great wrestler if it wasn't for my Dad being so hard on me. Well maybe that's true, but it's also in the past and you can't remain bitter for ever. There comes a time for forgiveness.
Yet I also realize people are always going to have their opinions. Many people think if I had wrestled at Oskaloosa instead of Sigourney I would have done much better. I suppose I can't say. Maybe I would have and then again, maybe I never would have seen the light of day up there either. Osky had a hell of a line up from 135-152 and simply cracking it would have been one hell of a task.
The thought of coaching has entered my mind a few times and I'll be honest with why I have never gotten into it. First and foremost because of time. Ever since I graduated college, I've always had a career that wouldn't allow me to coach. You need your nights free, you need your early mornings free and you need your weekends free if you are going to coach wrestling. I've always had at least one of the three if not all of the three, not free.
The other reason is because of other people in the wrestling community. I know I didn't qualify for state, I don't need to be reminded of it every three seconds. I can remember helping out at little kids practices and freestyle practices in the summer a few times and it was always the same old story. I'd show a kid how to do a move, say for example an arm bar and then someone else would come over, say that I showed the move wrong and I'd watch him show the move the exact same way I had just demonstrated it. I don't have time for the, "He don't know nothing cause he never went to state" treatment. As I've gotten older it has gotten better though. I think I've shown and proven in a variety of ways that I do have a great knowledge of this sport and that over the past 11 years I've continued to pick up even more knowledge and technique. I think now if I were to get into coaching, that wouldn't be as much of a problem as it was then. As for right now my main problem is time. I travel a lot for my job and the majority of my traveling happens in January, February and March.....which are wrestling season! Maybe one day something will happen that allows me to get back on the mat again. I think I'd have a heart attack trying to wrestle, seeing how out of shape I am, but I'd still like to do it.
You know I'm not exactly sure how I should end this blog. I have 100's of more wrestling memories that I could share, but I've already gone on enough tangents as it is. As you can tell, I was never a great wrestler. Yet, I never wrestled because I was great at it. I wrestled because I enjoyed the sport. I wrestled because it gave me something to work hard at and I made a ton of great friends. To say that it doesn't bother me at all anymore that I wasn't good would be a lie. I'll wish I would have been a great wrestler till the day I die, but you know what? I wasn't and it really isn't that big of a deal. I'm going to do a lot of other great things in my life. I'm already making a name for myself as a wrestling historian, writer and radio-cohost with takedownwrestle.com. Very thankful to Tony Hager, Brad Johnson, Scott Casber and Mike Houston for those opportunities and the opportunities aren't done yet either. Some people may think I'm full of shit because I still haven't been professionally published after trying the past 12 years, but I still believe I'm going to accurately call myself a novelist before I die.
I was never a successful wrestler, but I am and will continue to be successful because I was a wrestler.
I've said that for years and every year it becomes more and more true.
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