If you've ever met me in person, it isn't too hard to imagine that as a little kid I was awkward and weird. Not all that much different than I am today. A sensitive kid that cried easily, I was a target for bullies. Three kids in particularly picked on me nearly all of the first part of first grade. Ian, Drew and Greg. It was mostly petty stuff like shoving, poking and slaps to the back of the head. Not a big deal to me now at 37 years old, but to the 7 year old me, it was Hell.
My teacher Mrs. Fritchen did what she could about it. If she caught them bullying me, she put an end to it right away. Yet she wasn't always around to protect me. Especially after school. Drew had this move that he would use on me, where he shoved his thumb down really hard into my collar bone. It hurt bad enough to make me cry. My Dad hated that these three kids were picking on me and I think he hated it worse that I would just stand their and take it. I never defended myself.
Things got a little better as a kid two grades ahead of me, Nate Coble found out that the kids were picking on me. He would follow me all the way home, to make sure that the kids didn't bother me on my walk home from school.
My Dad wanted me to start sticking up for myself. He told me to never start a fight and to do my best to always walk away from one if at all possible, but if Ian, Drew and Greg wouldn't leave me alone, I had every right to defend myself. No matter how many lectures I sat through with Dad, I still wouldn't move a muscle if those three came around. It was driving my Dad insane.
The first thing we tried was Taekwondo. That lasted all of one afternoon. The Nelson family had moved into our little town of Sigourney, Iowa and turned our old movie theater/movie rental store into a dojo. I was friends with their two sons, Darrell III & Derek. On the first day of practice, I was one of the first ones there. As my mom was signing me up for classes, I went into the basement where practice would be. On the wall there were all sorts of weapons. Nun chucks, swords, katanas, you name it. A huge arsenal of weapons. At the time I was a huge TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLE fan (Hell, who am I kidding? I still am!). I saw sai on the wall, so I grabbed them and started dancing around pretending like I was Raphael. Sensei Nelson did NOT like this at all. She was ticked! I got yelled. My mom got yelled at. We were both asked to leave. That was the end of my days in Taekwondo.
Time passed as the bullying by my three Enemigos continued their daily assault. During P.E. Class our teacher Mr. Mateer handed out flyers for Little Savage Wrestling. I didn't think anything of it at the time, as I shoved it into my bookbag. Yet when I got home, my Dad was super excited about it as I handed him the flyer. He thought it was something that I should defiantly try when it started in a few weeks. I shrugged my shoulders. I didn't care either way.
Soon after Dad had a business trip to Dallas, Texas. He was going to be gone for a couple of weeks. When he came back he had a gift for my sister and a gift for me. At this time in my life, WWF (WWE) was a huge interest of mine. I was a huge Hulk Hogan fanatic and watched it every time it was on TV. The gift my Dad got me was a WCW action figure of Scott Steiner.
As I opened up the package, my Dad had me turn it over as he read the back of it to me.
Before becoming a WCW tag team champion with brother Rick, Scott was an All American wrestler for the University of Michigan in amateur wrestling.
I asked my Dad what amateur wrestling was. He told me that amateur wrestling was the same thing as Little Savage Wrestling. If I wanted to one day do what Scott Steiner and Hulk Hogan did, I was going to have to first do Little Savage Wrestling. That's all the convincing that I needed.
A couple of nights later my Uncle Jim took me to my first wrestling dual. I had no idea what was going on out there on the mat, and it was a lot different than the wrestling I watched Hulk Hogan do on TV. Nevertheless the HWT match really interested me. Our HWT at the time was a kid named Derek Miller and he threw his opponent all over the mat. It was fun watching him. I wanted to do what he was doing.
My parents had gotten divorced in November, so by my first practice in March (we got started late back then) my Dad had already been out of the house for four months. He told me to be ready for when he came over to pick me up. Excited, I took my mom's makeup out of the bathroom drawer and painted my face like the Ultimate Warrior. I figured I might as well go to practice in style. When Dad came to pick me up, we immediately drove over to Grandpa Harry's house (where he was staying at the time) and washed the makeup off my face. There my Dad gave me a pair of headgear he had gotten from my Uncle Chris who wrestled for Montezuma.
"You have to wear these, otherwise you'll get cauliflower ear."
I had no idea what cauliflower ear was, but the way my Dad described it, I knew I didn't want it. I've seen horror films less terrifying than the way Dad made Cauliflower ear out to be. I put that headgear on right then and right there & I did not take it off until we got back home.
Believe it or not, I remember my first practice. Not every detail of it, but more than you'd think I'd remember from 30 years ago. I'll never forget how our head coach Larry Bird described getting into your stance.
"You wanna stand like you're taking a dump out in the woods."
Not sure how many of us were taking dumps out in the woods, but it made sense to us.
Then the high school coach, Tong Uk Yi came in to show us a few moves.
All of the other kids were shouting out the names of moves as Coach Yi demonstrated them. Wanting to appear as if I knew something, my Dad had told me the names of a few moves. I didn't know one from the other, but remembered one as I shouted it out.
"Chicken wing!"
Coach Yi looked at me and said, "No, this is a half nelson."
I repeated the word. "Half nelson."
Two weeks worth of practice, and it was time for my first tournament.
I was scared to death.
It was one thing to go onto the mat and practice these moves with my teammates but to actually try them in competition? I shook with anticipation.
My Dad and Uncle Jim took me to my first meet. I don't remember where it was, but I do remember that my Dad had two rules for the day. No matter what happened, I was going to show good sportsmanship. That meant shaking my opponent's hand before and after the match. Secondly, I was to give it 100% and never give up.
That day I got the wind knocked out of me, both eyes blackened, a fat lip and a bloody nose. To quote Elias Koteas, I looked like I called Mike Tyson a sissy.
I was pinned in my first two matches and by all rights I should have been pinned in my final match, but the referee took mercy on me I guess. Either that, or he enjoyed watching me suffer.
The match was against South Tama County's Brian Flynn. From the get go he had me up in the air and on my back. Yet with my Dad and Uncle Jim cheering from the sidelines for me to keep fighting, I did all I could to hit the neckbridge that Coach Bird had taught us in practice.
It's amazing how long three minutes can be when you're fighting on your back like you're fighting for your life. Towards the end of the third period, I was spent. I had nothing left.
"Hey now," The referee said to me. "You haven't given up yet, don't give up on me now. As long as you keep fighting, I won't call the pin."
"Yeah," Brian said as he held me down on my back. "Don't give up. Keep trying."
Face red, out of breath, somehow or another I found it in myself to keep fighting off my back. After what seemed an eternity, the whistle blew. Time was up. Brian 14, Me 1.
Call wrestling a weird sport, not more than 5 minutes later, Brian and I were in the bleachers playing with action figures. It's amazing to me how two kids can go at it little mortal enemies on the mat and only moments later, be friends off of it.
After that tournament, I was done with wrestling. I told my Dad on the way home as I looked at my battered and beaten face in the side mirror that my days of wrestling were over. Much to my surprise I didn't receive a rebuttal. He just said ok, if I didn't want to do wrestling anymore I didn't have to.
And for a week, I didn't. Our practices came and went and they went without me. A few kids at school asked me why I wasn't going anymore, but it didn't bother me any.
Then one day while up town grocery shopping with my mom, we ran into coach Bird and his wife.
"Stephen," He said to me. "I've really missed you at practice. I was sad you weren't there."
I felt a bit ashamed having missed practice, but it wasn't until he said what he said next, that I made up my mind that I was going to go back to wrestling practice again.
"You are one of my favorites."
Other than my parents and family members, no adult had ever told me I was one of their favorites before. I thought of Coach Bird as a very important person. He was the guy who taught people wrestling. He thought of me as one of his favorites? Me? I thought to myself that if I was one of his favorites, than I had to go back. I just had to. When I got home, I called my Dad on the phone and said I wanted to go back to wrestling practice.
One night after getting bulled at school my Ian, Drew and Greg, my Dad said to me, "you know, you can use what you learned at wrestling practice against these guys." It had never occurred to me to use wrestling as a form of self defense, but maybe my Dad was right. Maybe wrestling could help me against these bullies.
I'll never forget where it was. Our playground at Sigourney South Elementary school looks different now than what it did then, but I'm almost positive 30 years later I could stand in the exact same spot where it happened. Drew decided he wanted to do his thumb in the collarbone trick that day and I decided I was going to use a move on Drew that I had done at wrestling practice. Surprising both myself and him, before I knew it, I had Drew up in the air and down on his back among the woodchips. I thought for sure that Ian and Greg would jump on me in defense of Drew, but instead they just stood their shocked. After a while Ian began to laugh at Drew. Drew got up and dusted himself off as Ian began to make fun of him and give him crap. I kept waiting for the retaliation thinking that I was going to get the beating of my life. Instead they walked off. That was the last day they ever picked on me and believe it or not, Greg and I became friends a short time later.
That season I went 1-13. How I won that one match I did, I don't know. I think he was as nervous and scared as I was and it just so happened that I'm the one that got my hand raised at the end of it. A 1-13 record isn't much to be proud of, but from my picture above, you can tell how proud I was to be a wrestler. It made me feel like a somebody. It made me feel important. Three decades later, I still feel it was one of the best decisions I ever made in life. Something I wouldn't change for the world. So thank you Sensei Nelson for kicking me out of your dojo that day and thank you Coach Bird for calling me one of your favorites. Whether I was or not, I believed I was and that had a huge positive impact on my life.
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