Wrestler’s Search for Gold Medal Takes a Long, Winding Road : Escondido’s Oliver Working Overtime to Become Member of Olympic Team

Roye Oliver lives in Escondido and is training 90 minutes away in Fullerton for a job tryout in Pensacola, Fla., that could take him to Seoul, South Korea, for a couple of weeks before he returns to his regular job in San Marcos.

That’s the circuitous route he needs to take if he’s to bring home a gold medal in the 1988 Olympic Games as a freestyle wrestler.

Kind of ambitious for a 31-year-old husband and father of two who pumps concrete by day and coaches a bunch of mat rats by night?

Maybe so, Oliver says. But the kids egged him on.

Those are the 48 boys, aged 5 to 14, whom Oliver coaches at the Escondido Boys and Girls Club. They have earned the nickname “The Crunchers” for their wrestling prowess in San Diego and Imperial counties.

Oliver’s credentials, though, go beyond coaching wrestling to a group of North County youngsters--some of whom travel from as far as Oceanside to study under him twice a week.

He was a finalist to make the U.S. Olympic wrestling team in 1984. Four years earlier, he was preparing for the Olympic trials, but his campaign was short-circuited when the United States boycotted the 1980 games in Moscow.

So Oliver--a three-time All-American wrestler out of Arizona State--figures this will be his last chance to go for the gold, and he doesn’t want to sit this one out.

“I thought that if I didn’t try one last time in ‘88, I’d always end up kicking myself,” said Oliver, whose lean, muscular frame ripples out of his running shorts and T-shirt. “There’s nothing like being No. 1 in the world, and if I still feel I’ve got a shot at it, then I’m going to try. I’m at the end of my career as far as my age.

“And besides, the kids told me I should try it. If it hadn’t been for them, I’d probably still say to heck with it. But I’ve seen how well the kids have done, and I figured I probably owe it to them.”

Indeed, Oliver enjoys a strong local fan club in the youngsters and their parents, who sing Oliver’s praises as a coach and motivator. A bunch of them, headed by Bob Martony, are trying to raise money for a trust fund so Oliver can quit his job for a few months and dedicate himself full-time to training.

And if making the U.S. Olympic team is a considerable challenge to Oliver, so, too, is raising $10,000 so Oliver can meet family and training expenses while he pursues his dream.

“I kind of thought that just the mention of an Escondido resident trying out for the Olympic team would generate donations for Roye,” Martony said. “But the money hasn’t been coming in that quickly, and time is running out.”

Currently, Oliver works at Pacific Concrete Pumping in San Marcos from 5:30 a.m. to noon daily, and then spends his afternoons lifting weights, running, swimming and wrestling.

Making the Olympic team is no light matter, and most of the men Oliver will face at the trials in June already are working full-time on their training schedules.

Oliver would like to do the same.

But only if the money can be raised can Oliver set aside concerns about putting food on the table and having gas money and instead focus solely on getting prepared for the various qualifying matches and, ultimately, the Olympic qualifying meets June 8-11 in Pensacola. At that time, one freestyle wrestler for each of the 10 weight categories--from 105 pounds to 286 pounds--will be selected to represent the United States in Seoul in September.

“I should be running, swimming and lifting weights in the morning, and wrestling and studying films (of his competition) in the afternoons and evenings,” Oliver said. “But right now, there’s not enough time in the day.”

Oliver has been driving to Cal State Fullerton three times a week to wrestle against other national-class wrestlers based at the Orange County university. Oliver would like to wrestle there five days a week so he can polish his technique, but he is unable to yet because of having to work every morning in San Marcos, and having to squeeze in his other training programs in the afternoons.

If he can accomplish this Olympic dream, it will consummate an involvement with wrestling that began when he was a 5-year-old going to the Boys Club in Omaha, Neb.

Escondido Boys and Girls Club officials are obviously pleased that Oliver has returned to his roots, albeit in a different city.

“He just loves kids, and he knows what they need--a lot of attention,” said Rob Damwijk, program director for the club. “The kids have a lot of fun but he knows how to make them buckle under, and they do. He knows when to put the nail to the wood, and the kids respect him for that.

“They know he’s their coach, and for a lot of them who come from single-parent homes, he’s their father,” Damwijk said.

Is Olympic gold just a dream? No, says Dan Lewis, the wrestling coach at Cal State Fullerton who has sparred with Oliver and watched him wrestle with other national-class wrestlers.

“He’s feeling real solid in the 180-pound class. He’s as strong as any 180-pounder I’ve ever wrestled, and there’s nobody any leaner than him,” Lewis said. “He’s got experience and age and he’s in condition. He’s got a real good shot at making the Olympic team.”

Oliver, who stands 5-feet 10-inches, said he’ll wrestle in the 180-pound category rather than the 163-pound category in which he had wrestled previously. His normal body weight is about 184 pounds, he said, and he would rather lose only four pounds than drop 21 pounds for the lighter category--a dramatic weight loss that would take its toll not only in body fat but muscle.

His competition in the 180-pound category includes men who normally weigh upward of 190 or 195 pounds, he noted.

“They’ll be bigger in terms of body frame and leverage, so I’ll need to be quicker to handle them,” Oliver said. “That’s why I’m focusing a lot of my weight lifting on endurance and stamina, versus bulk. I want to be able to go real hard for six minutes, because I don’t think those bigger guys are use to the pace that I’m used to wrestling when I was in the 163-pound class.

“And some of the guys, in order to cut to 180, are going to lose some of their strength. I don’t have a lot of body fat as it is, and I decided to stay in the heavier class, go in at my normal weight, and outmaneuver the bigger guys.”

The logic might pay off, said Dave Schultz, who beat out Oliver and others for the ’84 Olympic team and went on to win the gold medal in the 163-pound division.

“There’s a lot of depth (in talent) in this country at 163,” said Schultz, a wrestling coach at the University of Wisconsin and still the front-runner to repeat as the U.S. representative at 163 pounds in Seoul.

Said Schultz of Oliver’s talent: “He has, through his career, beaten a lot of the best wrestlers in the world . . . including a three-time world champion and the best Russian 180-pounder. Roye’s problem is that he’s not consistent. But he’s not too shabby. He’s a good, solid wrestler. He doesn’t have any technique that is really his trademark but--like they say for any sport--it comes down to your fundamentals, and he’s real strong in his fundamentals.”

Oliver’s biggest competition in qualifying for the U.S. Olympic wrestling team in the 180-pound class is Schultz’s brother, Mark, himself a two-time world champion freestyle wrestler and the Olympic gold medal winner in ’84.

“The problem (with qualifying for the Olympic team) is that there’s only one slot, and Roye will have to go up against my brother, who’s not too shabby, either,” Schultz said.

Still, he said he wishes Oliver the best.

“He’s a hell of a guy, a quality person,” Schultz said. “You figure that I’ve always beat him and he’s still been nothing but good-natured to me. I think that says a lot about a guy.”