Ice Cream Had Championship Flavor for West High Wrestler Josh Gormley

Moments after West Torrance High School’s Josh Gormley won the state heavyweight wrestling championship Saturday night, his coach, Kent Wyatt, let him know that victory would be sweet.

“Even before I got off the mat,” Gormley said, “he said, ‘Let’s go get ice cream.’ ”

“We usually go out for pizza,” Wyatt said.

But this night it was Mel’s Diner in Stockton, where Wyatt, Gormley and a host of teammates, relatives and friends toasted West’s first state champion over hot fudge sundaes and banana splits.

Wyatt, who has coached 20 years at West, never had a state champion before.

“It’s about time,” he said.

Gormley, a 6-foot-4, 235-pound junior, took the title with a run of five victories at the two-day tournament at the University of the Pacific.

He defeated San Diego’s Chris Shaffer, 6-2; Bellarmine’s Ruben Payan, 10-2; Washington Union’s Rod Williams, 3-1; Hoover’s Gary Williams, 4-3, and Mission Bay’s Derick Flemming, 10-2.

Gormley finished the season with a 28-5 record, including victories in eight of his last nine matches. The only defeat in that stretch was to Rim of the World’s Jeff Maier in the final of the Southern Section Masters Meet, the qualifying tournament for the state meet.

In winning a state championship, Gormley earned more than whipped cream and cherry toppings.

“When I walked by guys in the stands at the state tournament before the championship match,” he said, “I heard them say, ‘That’s Gormley. He’s wrestling for the championship.’ ”

So how does Gormley, whom Wyatt describes as a refreshingly naive country boy, feel about his new-found notoriety?

“I’m not a nobody anymore,” Gormley said. “I really can’t believe I’m a state champion. I thought state champions were different than everybody else--that they had some kind of aura about them.

“But I’m (still) a normal person,” he said. “I just have a first-place medal.”

While Gormley may not be a fast-talking city slicker, he made the best of a short season that began in Northern California.

Gormley was a middle linebacker on the football team at Red Bluff High School. But his family moved to Inglewood in November and later resettled in Torrance.

Gormley said he didn’t fit in at Leuzinger High, and after the family’s second move he transferred to West.

There, he said, he missed half the wrestling season and became eligible to compete only 15 minutes before his first match.

“I had to establish residency (first), and (section officials) checked to make sure we really lived here in this house,” Gormley said.

He gained confidence by winning his first eight matches, beginning with the Tournament of Champions at El Camino College in early December. In fact, Wyatt said, he may have gotten overconfident.

Two weeks later, in a tournament at Rolling Hills, Gormley was soundly defeated by Rod Williams.

In addition, his coach said, Gormley was wrestling under a handicap--torn cartilage in his right knee.

Gormley said he may have been injured in a football game at Red Bluff. “I woke up one day and it was swollen up,” he said.

The injury didn’t keep Gormley off the wrestling mat, but now he faces arthroscopic surgery to repair his knee and two to three weeks of rehabilitation.

One thing is certain: He returns next year as a state champion, a title he plans to retain.

“There’s not that much more I can do next year,” Gormley said. “(Winning a state championship) is kind of untouchable. But going undefeated, and winning the state (title)--that’s my goal next season. I’ll be embarrassed to lose to anybody next year.”

And if he does repeat, maybe they will celebrate with more ice cream.