WRESTLING FOR LIFE : Oba Won’t Let Bout With Leukemia Deter His Dreams

Brandon Oba isn’t looking for shortcuts or special favors. He wants only one thing--a letterman’s jacket for wrestling at Brea-Olinda High School--and wants to earn it through hard work.

Oba, 16, found out last year that he has chronic leukemia, a fatal cancer of the blood that is progressive and curable only by successful bone-marrow transplants.

The disease has made him want to reach his goal all the more.

“Well, I’m not going to be here forever,” Oba said, “so I can try and do what I have only had dreams of. Like I had only dreams of my letter jacket. I figured, well, maybe. . . . But once I found out, it seemed more and more apparent that obviously this is something I really wanted. This is something I can achieve in my life.

“After the first couple of months, I sat down and thought, ‘You know, this isn’t going to get in my way.’ I can still function as a human being. I don’t feel any real pain except in my joints. (And) you learn to bear the pain because it’s just one of those things. Guys (have) got to overcome obstacles,” he said.

“If there’s one thing that matters in this world, it is getting my letter jacket before I graduate. That’s one thing that I really wanted.”

Doctors say life expectancy is between three and five years after diagnosis without successful transplants. Oba’s one chance is a marrow transplant. And today is the third day of a three-day donor drive at Brea Community Hospital, organized for Oba and another high school student with leukemia, Anissa Ayala of Walnut.

Usually, transplants are done with a relative whose blood tissues match the patient’s. But because no one in Oba’s family qualifies as a match, the search has gone public.

Despite his disease, Oba refuses to be bitter.

“Why not me?” he said. “Would it have been any better if my brother (Travis) got it? I couldn’t handle it. When I got it, my family was in a shambles.

“Same with my best friend. I wouldn’t know how to react,” Oba said. “No one wants it. There’s no way I can sincerely ask, ‘Why me?’ ”

Oba hadn’t participated in high school sports other than physical education classes before he decided wrestling would be his best chance to earn a letter. His joints can’t handle long-distance running, and his knees can’t take the pounding of playing basketball. So he tried wrestling.

“You wrestle in a big circle, how far can he run?” said Oba, who competes at 145 pounds.

When he went out for wrestling last year, Coach Ed Bonilla consented. Then, Oba told him about the leukemia.

“I was stunned for a minute,” Bonilla said. “I didn’t know he could still wrestle and have leukemia. My question to Brandon then was, ‘Will it affect your wrestling?’ ”

Apparently it hasn’t.

Oba was 12-4 with the junior varsity last season, was seeded first at the league meet and was named the team’s most improved and most inspirational wrestler.

“I figured I’d wander in and check everything out, because it sounded OK,” he said of his first day with the team.

“The team had just gotten together, and they had been practicing for about an hour and a half, and I see all these guys wearing sweats and they’re just dripping and soaking, wringing out their clothes.

“I was kind of nervous at first . . . But I figured if I really put my heart into it, I could accomplish my goal.”

Oba insists he’s a typical teen-ager. But he’s taking five advanced placement classes in school. He’s a member of the National Honor Society.

And when he’s away from school, he likes to go four-wheeling with his friend, Howie Voeltz, in the truck his parents bought him this summer.

“He’s the same person as he was before he got leukemia,” Voeltz said. “He still likes to go out and do stuff.

“I’ll never forget one time this summer when we went to Mammoth after he first got his truck. We decided to go up in the hills, but when we got to this one big hill, he got all worried. ‘I’m not going to be able to make it up,’ he said. But he backed up about 50 feet and went for it.

“As we got closer to the top, he started saying, ‘Come on. Come on. You can make it,’ to the truck. When we got to the top he gave me a look of relief that he made it, that I’ll never forget,” Voeltz said.

Oba is struggling to make the varsity team this year. He’ll earn a letter after competing in five matches.

“It’s very likely he’ll wrestle a lot of varsity this year,” Bonilla said. But it will be tougher than last year because most varsity wrestlers have more experience than Oba.

It hasn’t been easy. There are times when Oba can’t do it, when he has to be carried out of practice to catch his breath because of allergies and asthma.

“But after he cools down, he’ll be right back in there,” Bonilla said. “He doesn’t want it (special treatment). He wants to be treated like anyone else on the team.”

“He’s never used (his disease) as a ploy to get out of something,” said his mother.

In a second-round match at the league finals last year, Oba suffered a severe mat burn on his right shoulder and was pinned. Some expected him to forfeit his next match for third place, but he didn’t.

He wrestled with his arm taped to his body to keep his shoulder from moving. He pinned his opponent in the second period.

“That’s his personality,” Bonilla said. “He just doesn’t give up.”

Oba said he’s never felt bitterness about his situation or questioned why he got the disease.

His parents, who both work in medicine, have helped him deal with the illness. His father, Steve, is a special-procedure technician and his mother, Karen, is an X-ray technician.

“But we still didn’t know what it’d mean to our family,” his mother said. “(I reacted) like any parent who found out something was wrong with their child. It was upsetting.

“We’ve tried to not let this affect us too much and go on with our life.”

Oba has the same philosophy.

“It (death) scared me before, but now, it’s like it’s going to happen. I’ve come to terms with my life and I think everything’s OK. I’m moving forward,” Oba said.

“I told (Bonilla), I’m just one of the guys. I’m not going to let leukemia get in the way of what I want to do.”