Pinning Down an Attitude : Rebuilding Royal’s Wrestling Program, Reed Finds He Really Needs Aggravation

John Reed doesn’t worry about becoming aggravated and stressed out. On the contrary, despite all outward appearances, Reed strives to reach a state of edginess whenever possible.

He likes it there. It’s where he feels most comfortable.

And Reed, in his third season as Royal High’s wrestling coach, strongly recommends that mind-set to his wrestlers. As far as Reed is concerned, it is wrestling’s answer to visualizing success. It’s an attitude.

“You gotta be a hardhead,” Reed said. “There’s no two ways about it. And, you know, if you’re not in that frame of mind, you’re probably not a wrestler.

“We decided what our motto should be: ‘Aggravated and stressed out.’ ”

Funny, but Reed doesn’t look the least bit aggravated or stressed out. Instead, life seems rather rosy for the 41-year-old coach, although he has yet to complete his task of re-establishing a once formidable program.

Even so, Royal defeated perennial City Section power El Camino Real, 42-32, early this season and the Highlanders finished fourth in the 18-team Oxnard tournament last month.

Reed was raised the son of a barber in Lamar, Colorado, a hamlet better known for basketball, football and baseball than for wrestling. Reed wrestled anyway, but only for three years in junior high school.

“When I hit the 10th grade, I was 6-foot-3, and I was a basketball player,” Reed said. “And I always felt I kind of got shafted, because basketball, to me, is an OK sport but wrestling is really a sport. I wish I had done it through high school.”

Instead, Reed played for basketball, football and baseball teams that placed high in the Colorado playoffs, in the process laying a foundation for his coaching aspirations.

The Reeds moved back to Oklahoma, where John was born, in the early 1960s (“About 1964, when the Beatles came out, the barber business got really bad,” he said). Reed continued playing baseball as a pitcher at Northwestern Oklahoma State, where he was a teammate of Mike Hargrove, who went on to become an American League Rookie of the Year with the Texas Rangers.

“I used to strike him out,” Reed said with a wry smile.

Reed then bounced around until settling at Douglass High in Oklahoma City (perhaps best known for its football team’s 56-game winning streak), where he coached the wrestling team from 1978 until 1986. Just before his first season at Douglass, Reed remembered a chance meeting with Stan Able, the wrestling coach at University of Oklahoma, several years earlier.

He then made a phone call that has helped shape his coaching career.

“I just called him and said, ‘Stan, do you remember who I am?’ ” Reed said. “And he said, ‘Oh, yeah.’ I said, ‘Would you mind if I come up and watch a few practices? It’s been a long time for me.’

“He was so great for me. He’d give me all kinds of instructions. I got better clinic out of a couple of weeks doing that than you could ever pay money for. And it worked out really neat, in that later on, before it got to be such a no-no thing to do, I got to take my kids down there to ostensibly just watch. But every once in a while one of my kids would talk one of the OU guys into wrestling, and they’d be rolling around down there.

“He’d give us free tickets, and most of the kids I had then were of very modest income. We would load up in my van and tickets would be waiting at the gate. We got to see some great wrestling.”

Douglass’ teams soared under Reed’s tutelage, winning more than 70 dual matches in eight seasons.

“John was energetic and a pretty good salesman and wanted to spread the word of wrestling,” said Able, 52, who has coached the Sooners for 18 years. “He’s a good promoter and takes great pride in the finished product.”

However, the blue-cold winters and searing summers of Oklahoma City disagreed with Reed, whose shoulder-length blond hair might have seemed out of place in the Midwest anyway. So, in 1986, Reed accepted a coaching position at Fillmore High, where he set about establishing a wrestling program.

Reed, however, became disenchanted with the Flashes in a flash. Aggravated and stressed out, perhaps.

“We practiced in the cafeteria,” he said. “Bad enough that, but we would have to move the tables and put them back. I don’t have a tremendous ego, but it really started to get on my nerves because it was making my kids feel like some sort of kitchen help.

“And to be a wrestler, if you don’t have some kind of pride that goes beyond moving tables around . . . “

Reed turned the tables on Fillmore: Despite leading the Flashes to a 7-5 record, he departed for Royal, a program in turmoil.

Royal actually was desperately seeking another Jerry Barnes, the coach from 1968 to ’82. The Highlanders won six Marmonte League championships under Barnes and had what was considered one of the area’s top programs.

The Highlanders have not won a league title since. In fact, Reed’s teams have a 2-11 league record since he took over. Although Royal is 15-18 in dual meets under Reed, including a 2-6 record this season, the Highlanders boast five wrestlers who competed in last year’s Southern Section 4-A Division meet.

Reed admits it may be difficult to forge a winning record this season. The Highlanders forfeit two of 13 weight classes every match because they can’t fill the 97-pound and heavyweight divisions. But he still finds much to like about this season’s team.

“I may have my worst dual-meet record and yet have one of my best teams,” he said.

The victory over El Camino Real--which came despite the forfeits--might have been the match that changed the program’s fortunes.

Last year, El Camino Real beat Royal, 52-12.

Perhaps the transformation can be attributed to the issue of forced busing that arose after that first El Camino Real match.

Reed forced the bus driver and the managers off the bus, then forced his battered team to sit through a patented Reed tirade. Rumor has it that Reed’s Oklahoma twang was heard all the way back in Oklahoma City.

“Royal is very good,” El Camino Real Coach Milt Goffman said after this season’s match. “A very good team. They have no holes in their lineup and they have a good athlete in every spot.”

Among them are Eric Landegger (9-2), a 105-pound senior who placed second in the league and seventh in the 4-A Division last season; David Jukes, a senior who is 10-5 at 138 pounds, but will compete at 132 pounds when league play starts; Richard Tucker (10-5), a 165-pound senior; and Billy Dobbs (10-5), a 175-pound senior.

By no coincidence, they all joined Reed when the coach showed up at the Simi Valley school.

“Two years of hard time is not a very long time to absorb the nuances to be a complete wrestler,” Reed said. “This year, we’re beginning to show we’re OK.”

That’s OK, as in Oklahoma.