Prep Wrestling : CITY PLAYOFFS : Highly Regarded Canoga Park Sweats, Lunges After City Title

It’s mid-afternoon at Canoga Park High where, in a small square room, 13 bodies clad in gym shorts, sweats, T-shirts, head gear and high-top wrestling shoes grapple with one another on a worn green mat.

At one end of the room there is a bulletin board. Leaning against it are six cardboard signs that rest horizontally on a ledge.

Written in black paint on each is a famous quote attributed to a former Green Bay Packer.

One says: “Nothing important comes easy.” --Paul Hornung.

To the Canoga Park wrestling team, a City championship is important. That’s why they have endured the months of dieting and long hours of weight-training, running, sit-ups and practice demanded of them by Coach Rudy Lugo.

Canoga is one of the favorites to win the team championship in the City wrestling finals today at San Fernando High, but they know a title won’t come easy. Action starts at noon, with the finals starting at 7:30 p.m.

That’s why, day after day, they come to this room that reeks of sweat and Ben-Gay.

Canoga has already won Valley League dual-meet and tournament titles this year. But it wants one more.

Says another sign on the bulletin board: “It takes a little more to be a champion.” Lugo wrote that one himself. He asks a little extra from his wrestlers.

During practices, which are usually about two hours long, each Canoga wrestler is in almost constant motion. If they’re not flinging each other around on the mat, they’re doing sit-ups and push-ups, or running.

“I believe in those sayings up there on the wall,” Lugo said. “My favorite is, ‘If you believe in yourself you can reach inside and find something you didn’t know you had.’ ”

Lugo’s wrestlers say they have to do that each day just to make it through practice.

“Wrestling is a sport of conditioning,” Lugo said. “The strong win, and if you’re not strong, you had better be quick, smart and tough.”

Mike Caro, Canoga’s 194-pounder, is all of the above. He has a 16-3 record this year and won his second consecutive league championship in his weight class.

Caro finished fourth in the City meet last year, but he was wrestling with a cracked rib. He is healthy this time, and he’ll be the favorite in his weight class.

At the league finals last week, Caro used the same move to pin opponents in his last two matches. The move is called a “Wizzer,” and it’s a Caro specialty.

“It’s a strength move,” Lugo said. “That’s probably Mike’s greatest asset--his upper-body strength. What makes him as good as he is, though, is he’s complete. He’s strong, has confidence, is knowledgeable, has great balance. . . . “

If there is a word that describes Caro, though, it’s intense.

“Desire is something you can’t teach, and Mike has it,” Lugo said. “He went to a summer wrestling camp. He reads about wrestling. He talks about wrestling. He is never satisfied.”

And he hates to lose.

Lugo recalls the last time Caro lost with a smile. He says it might have helped his star wrestler, more than hurt him.

“He was way ahead and got rolled on and pinned,” Lugo recalled. “I remember I was a little worried how he was going to act.

“A loss is a real crisis for a guy like him. It’s a pivotal time. Guys can get discouraged, or they can fight back. He came back with more intensity than ever. He worked harder in practice. It lit a fire under him. He realized that he couldn’t live off of what he had done in the past. He’d have to improve.”

Caro doesn’t like to talk about his last loss, which was more than a month ago. Instead, he talks about the coach and teammates who have helped him become a champion.

“This is probably the hardest working, most dedicated team around,” Caro said. “Coach doesn’t let us rest. He pushes us to the limit, as far as we can go, and we’ve responded. That’s why I’m a champion and that’s why the team is a champion.”

Canoga won the Valley finals by a 154-150 score even though Caro was the Hunters’ only individual champion. Canoga sent eight wrestlers to the finals, but seven lost.

“We only won one, and I’m a little disappointed in that, but in a way it pleases me that it took a team effort,” Lugo said. “Even our fourth-place finishers had a hand in us winning. Even guys who didn’t score, but won a match and knocked someone from another school out helped. It took all 13 guys for the team to win.”

The Canoga wrestlers are going through their final exercises. They form a circle around one team member who leads them in a sequence of push-ups, sit-ups, sprints, stand-ups, and something they call “sprawls,” in which the wrestlers throw themselves to the floor and pop up using their hands and chest. The end of another exhausting day of practice is near.

As they file out of the room, one is questioned by an onlooker about the difficulty of the day’s workout.

“Tough? That was nothing,” is the reply.

In the middle of the room, Lugo forces a tired smile. He’s 37 years old and looks much younger, but this season has made him feel old.

“My back is killing me,” he says. “That’s what I get for wrestling around with a guy like Caro.”

Lugo has been the wrestling coach since 1975. His team has never won a City championship and he wants a win as bad as his players do. Although practice has ended, his work has just begun. There are films to watch and scouting reports to complete.

“Time to hit the road,” Lugo says. He’ll leave his team jacket behind, though.

“My wife won’t let me wear it around the house,” he says. “She says it smells too much like this room.”