He’s Gumby in Tights : El Dorado Wrestler Todd Tomazic Finds Success, if Not Applause, in Flexibility

Todd Tomazic may be undefeated in 16 matches this season, but no matter how hard the El Dorado High School wrestler tries, no matter how dominating the senior is, he can’t seem to impress anyone.

For this, Tomazic can thank the perils of prosperity.

Forget all those things his coach, Frank Gonzales, says about Tomazic not yet reaching his potential. As far as the fickle Golden Hawk fans are concerned, Tomazic ascended to the pinnacle of his sport last season when he won the state championship in the 167-pound division.

But his triumph last spring has made his senior season that much more difficult.

There is little gratification for Tomazic if he easily pins an opponent or wins, 15-0. Most fans expect that from the state champ. He’s supposed to win big.

And if he wins by a close score, say, 5-2, some still aren’t satisfied. Fans expect more from the state champ. He should pin everyone. Or at least win, 15-zip.

Tomazic, the kid who can’t lose, has found himself in a no-win situation.

And this is merely the treatment he gets at home, which is wonderful compared to what he receives on the road. Away from the El Dorado gym, Tomazic is hated.

When he was in Fresno a few weeks ago to wrestle in the Clovis Shootout, one local fan was screaming during his match: “You’re gonna lose, Tomazic! You’re no good!”

Everyone in the gym, with the exception of his coach, teammates and the school bus driver, was rooting against him.

“It kind of stinks,” Tomazic said. “Even when you’re at home, where everyone’s rooting for you, and you get a tough guy who you can’t pin, there’s a letdown. I just try to block it out.

“I’ll take the win any way I can get it. Come two years from now, they’re not going to remember that you won, 6-2--just that you won.”

What some fans don’t seem to realize is that Tomazic is still not fully recovered from the December knee surgery that repaired torn cartilage, and that some opponents will stall against him, looking to keep the score down and hoping for a big break that may possibly lead to an upset.

But don’t count on it. With his first-place finish in the Five Counties Tournament at Fountain Valley this past weekend, Tomazic appears to be as strong as ever.

He won five matches, three by pins, and defeated Canyon’s Greg Monteith, 3-0, for the title Saturday night. Tomazic is getting stronger each week, and if he remains healthy he’ll be favored to win another state championship.

Tomazic was one of two Golden Hawks who won state titles last season. The other was Steve Lawson in the 194-pound division. Tomazic grew up wrestling with Lawson for the North Orange County Titans, a youth team based in Fullerton.

It was also Lawson who nearly drove Tomazic out of the sport in fourth grade.

“I had never wrestled before, and during the first few days he gave me whoopings every day,” Tomazic said. “I was ready to quit, but my coach (Bob Stolo) talked me into staying out. After I won my first novice tournament, I decided to stick with it.”

Tomazic learned a lot from Lawson, who graduated in 1986, but he didn’t adopt Lawson’s wrestling style. Lawson was an extremely physical wrestler, a brawler, an explosive, offensive force who loved to pick guys up and slam them to the mat.

Tomazic is more like Gumby in tights. His strength lies in his flexibility and free-style approach. He is limber, especially in the back and legs, and usually stretches and bends through most of his moves.

“A lot of guys try moves on me that work on other people, but I stretch a little farther than they think,” Tomazic said. “A lot of the moves I use I just fall into, and I can get away with them because my body moves that way. But my moves don’t have names, because nobody else uses them.”

Tomazic has never taken yoga, but he pulls his leg up and behind his head is as easily as folding his arms across his chest. During warmups, when teammates are doing a straddle-stretch with their legs apart and struggling to touch their toes, Tomazic is touching his chest to the mat.

Tomazic’s flexibility is evident in all phases of a match. When opponents try to counter his moves, he flows with them and improvises to gain the advantage. When he’s on the bottom, he has an uncanny knack for escaping. When he’s on top, he clings to his opponent like chewing gum.

“The best thing about him is that he’s unorthodox,” Gonzales said. “He has the ability to get out of any tough situation and end up on top. That’s something you can’t teach.”

Tomazic, in his fourth year on the varsity, has a career record of 123-25. He qualified for the Southern Section 4-A meet as a 157-pound freshman, and finished second in the 4-A meet and sixth in the Southern Section Masters Meet as a 157-pound sophomore.

He moved up to the 167-pound division as a junior and wrestled his first eight matches this season at 177 pounds before cutting back to 167 to make room for his little--make that younger --brother, Brian, a 194-pound sophomore.

But for the first few weeks of the season, Tomazic had only his frustrations to wrestle with. A knee injury, incurred during last summer’s Junior Olympics at Iowa and aggravated during football season and the first day of wrestling practice, was keeping him out of competition.

Tomazic underwent arthroscopic surgery in early December to sew up loose cartilage, and he missed the El Dorado Holiday Invitational and the Edison 8-Way Tournament.

Team physician Craig Caldwell didn’t figure that Tomazic would be back in two weeks, but there he was on Dec. 17, wrestling against Sunny Hills in a dual meet and defeating his first opponent, 15-0.

“My therapist wanted to hold me off, but I couldn’t sit and watch any more wrestling,” Tomazic said. “I don’t love pain, but I love wrestling enough to wrestle with it.”

Gonzales has no second thoughts about allowing Tomazic to wrestle, even though he isn’t at full strength.

“He’s one tough hombre ,” Gonzales said. “In his sophomore year, he separated his shoulder toward the end of a match against (Loara’s) Chris Wright, but he didn’t let that stop him. He lost, but he was able to finish the match.”

Gonzales, in his 13th year as El Dorado coach, has had several outstanding wrestlers, but Tomazic, because of his 3.8 grade-point average, will probably be the most heavily recruited athlete to come out of his program.

Such schools as Notre Dame, Arizona State, Lehigh, Villanova and West Point have shown interest. Tomazic said he is leaning toward Notre Dame and ASU.

Which proves at least one point.

Tomazic must be impressing some people.