Good Loser Finds Winning Is Better : Young West Covinan Has Never Learned What It Means to Quit

As Bill Bentson stared at the two 8-year-old combatants tumbling on a mat at Cypress College in 1976, he couldn’t help but wonder if a discouraging history would repeat.

For almost two years, Bentson had squirmed on wooden bleachers across the state waiting for son Sean to win his first wrestling match.

“It took a lot to sit in the stands and watch him get beat week in and week out,” Bentson said.

Most boys of Sean’s age would have traded their wrestling tights and headgear for a beat-up baseball glove and cap after two years of frustration, but he refused to quit.

“I don’t like quitters and I guess that ethic kind of rubbed off on Sean,” Bentson said. “Sean has never been a quitter. Whatever he tries, he gives it his best.”

And on a Saturday 10 years ago the remarkable finally happened--Sean won a match.

“We were really raising it after that,” Bentson said. “It was great to see him win. Sean learned to be a good loser before he was a winner.”

Although victories once were scarce for Sean, defeats are now rare for the 18-year-old senior at West Covina High School.

His three-year record at West Covina was 149-12, which included consecutive 40-0 regular-season marks as a junior and a senior. In 1984 he won the Western U. S. Wrestling Tournament in Idaho and finished fourth in the Grand Nationals in Nebraska.

Favored but Foiled

He won the 155-pound CIF championship as a junior and finished sixth in the nation in the Junior Nationals in Iowa last summer. Last month, he was a prohibitive favorite to win the 167-pound CIF title in the state finals at San Jose.

Entering the championship bout, he was 44-0. But Todd Tomazic, a junior from El Dorado High School in Orange County who was 47-2, defeated him, 11-7.

“Sean Bentson was the one to beat in the weight class,” said Coach Frank Gonzales of El Dorado. “It just so happened that Todd was high and ready to go.

“But had they wrestled another day, the result probably would have been different. It was a big-time upset.”

Bentson said he is a scientific, rather than a power, wrestler who is at his best when on his feet. His usual game plan is to take his opponent down and then let him back up to get another takedown. A takedown is worth two points and an escape is worth one. Bentson’s strategy is to outpoint his opponent during the three two-minute periods rather than depend on a pin for the victory.

But after getting the first takedown against Tomazic, he decided to stay on the mat, where Gonzales said Tomazic is at his best.

“I wrestled wrong,” Bentson said simply. “I was riding him and he slipped right out of it. I’d never wrestled anyone like him before, but I guess you have to adjust.”

Bentson said he had no one to blame but himself, which is the main reason he stuck with wrestling in the first place.

When he was 6, several of his close friends were wrestling enthusiasts, so it was only natural for him to take up the sport. Although he played baseball, soccer and football, the one-on-one element of wrestling captivated him.

Bentson, 5-8, 170 pounds (185 during the off-season), said that although he has never been a 98-pound weakling, he has never been “monstrous” either.

Bentson played football, at fullback and linebacker, for four years at West Covina and was captain in his final three seasons. But his father said wrestling brought all of Sean’s athletic abilities to the forefront, which football could not do.

After all, the individual is often overlooked in a team sport such as football. Bentson said others scored the touchdowns and grabbed the headlines thanks to Sean’s blocks.

But in wrestling, it’s impossible to ignore the individual.

“Wrestling is one-to-one combat,” Sean said. “That’s what I love about it.”

Although he was spellbound with wrestling from the start, his parents were not as enthralled with the sport.

“For years, my wife and I didn’t know anything about wrestling,” Bentson said. “Cindy said we should have had him play baseball because ‘we know something about baseball.’ But I’ve never missed a match and she knows all of his stats.”

With his high school career over and hundreds of matches under his belt, Bentson is readying to grapple with college. He said some of the nation’s most prominent wrestling schools, including Nebraska, Oklahoma and Iowa, have contacted him.

Iowa just won its ninth straight national title to tie the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. record for consecutive team championships shared by Yale (golf, 1905-13) and USC (track and field, 1935-43).

“That’s quite a compliment in itself having schools of that caliber recruiting him,” said Terry Martin, the West Covina and Mt. San Antonio College wrestling coach. “They don’t bother recruiting someone they feel can’t compete on that level.”

Martin, a former junior national freestyle champion who attended Mt. SAC and Oklahoma, met Bentson 10 years ago while the 65-pounder was looking for that elusive first victory.

“At that age, wrestling is more of a learning experience,” Martin said. “It’s hard to predict how someone will turn out. But Sean showed he had a lot of potential.”

School Needed Coach

He coached Bentson for just one year, but the two were reunited again seven years later when Sean’s father asked Martin to fill the coaching vacancy at West Covina.

“The school was in dire need of a coach and Bill Bentson came to me and asked me if I would coach,” said Martin, who was beginning his fifth year at Mt. SAC. “The season was going to start in a week and a half and the school had never had a wrestling coach that had wrestled, so I said I’d do it.”

Martin’s teaching, more than Sean’s athletic ability or hard work, turned the youth into a consistent winner. Martin stressed positioning, minimizing mistakes and relying on a scientific approach.

“He was more of an unskilled wrestler who relied solely on his strength,” Martin said. “Now he’s very polished. He’s a real tactician.”

Martin, who now weighs about 185, showed Sean the benefits of this style firsthand. During the season, the two would square off on the mat five days a week.

“He pretty much kicks my butt,” Sean said. But Martin said that when they wrestle hard, “he stays right with me” and “we push each other real well.”

Sean’s wrestling goals are short-term: choosing a school and attending two tournaments this summer, one in Las Vegas and the other a return bout at the Junior Nationals in Iowa.

Martin said his prize pupil also has long-term goals, including becoming a two- or three-time All-American and winning a national title.

“It’s not real uncommon for someone who’s wrestled as long as Sean has to get burned out on the sport,” said Martin, who has been involved in wrestling for 18 years. “But I think he’s set some high goals for himself and that reduces the chance of burnout.”

And if Bentson really wants to become a national wrestling champion, he’s shown he doesn’t quit, no matter how long it may take for that one victory.