Life’s Takedowns Just Make Maes Stronger

Five years of collegiate wrestling have taught Cal State Fullerton’s Jeff Maes never to pin all his hopes on one match--or one setback.

Put an obstacle in front of him, and he will politely take it down, then win on points.

Take the bum right knee that has troubled him since December. It has only made him tougher--and more determined to reach the NCAA championships for a school-record fourth time.

“Actually, it has helped me as far as my intensity,” said Maes, ranked eighth nationally in the 126-pound class by Amateur Wrestling News.

So has a change in his approach to the sport.

When the wrestling team’s budget was cut two years ago because of decreased private donations, Maes had to pay his housing costs.

He could have quit, as some of his teammates did. Instead, he dug in his pockets, took out loans and landed a grant to pay for his expenses.

“Losing our budget made my love for the sport come back,” Maes said. “I realized how important wrestling was to me. I thought back to when I was at (La Puente) Nogales High, when I wasn’t wrestling for scholarship money but for myself. That’s why I won a State title my senior year.

“Now, I’m not wrestling for anything, no money. And I know if I’m not an All-American this year, at least I worked my butt off trying. This program is surviving, and we know that we’re achieving something that other schools need money to achieve.”

Maes is 23-4 this season, and how far he goes depends largely on how well his knee holds up. His only losses have come against higher-ranked wrestlers, and he is encouraged by the fact that he’s undefeated since coming back from the knee injury.

“Jeff has put a lot of pressure on himself and is becoming more aggressive this season,” Fullerton Coach Ardeshir Asgari said. “He’s putting forth the effort it takes to win.”

Maes stretched the medial collateral ligament in his right knee in December at a tournament in Las Vegas. He competed in Bakersfield a month later but re-injured it in an early-round match.

Despite the injury, Maes kept competing--and won the tournament.

“I think that experience really helped me,” he said. “Especially with my intensity. I wrestled four matches on a bum knee, and I did what I had to to win.”

Maes will need an even better effort if he hopes to break his 0-3 record at the NCAA championships. Inexperience hurt his chances in 1990 and ‘91, and he came back from a redshirt year in 1992 with hopes of winning a match last season.

A bout with the flu just before the tournament drained Maes’ strength but not his determination. In his first match, the score was tied, 5-5, with 20 seconds left, but a “stupid move” landed Maes on his back. He lost, 10-5.

A lesson learned? Maes believes so.

“This year, I’ll try to stay more healthy before the tournament,” he said. “I’ll stay away from people who are sick.”

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Numbers game: The Fullerton men’s basketball team, which is 4-15 and 2-9 in the Big West, must win at least one of its final seven regular-season games, or at least one tournament game, to avoid matching the second-worst season in school history. The Titans were 1-25 in 1964-65 under Alex Omalev and were 4-23 in 1980-81 under George McQuarn.

The Titans, who have lost three in a row and five of their last six, have lacked depth all season.

Injuries and the flu forced them to practice three on three for a time, and the team photo had to be rescheduled twice because of missing players. Forward Greg Vernon missed practice two weeks ago because of the flu, guard Josh King missed the UC Santa Barbara game after undergoing oral surgery and forward David Frigout is playing with a stress fracture in his left foot.

By early last week, everybody was back--except forward Darren Little--who missed practice to write a paper for a class.

The team photo finally was taken last Tuesday, when the Titans actually had enough players to scrimmage five on five.

Titan Notes

Better off the bench? Coach Brad Holland pulled Darren Little out of the starting lineup last Thursday night at Pacific for missing practices earlier in the week. Little responded with a season-high 23 points. Little returned to the starting lineup two days later at San Jose State and scored eight points. . . . Schedule changes: Earthquake damage at the Cal State Northridge campus has forced officials to move Sunday’s Fullerton-Northridge softball doubleheader to Fullerton. The Feb. 19 Northridge-Fullerton baseball game also is expected to be moved from Northridge to Fullerton. . . . The men’s soccer team, which reached the NCAA final four this past season, will meet FC Keli Linz, a club team from Australia, at 4:30 p.m. Saturday at Titan Stadium.