Meier Wrestles on His Terms : Athletics: Irvine standout wants nothing to do with many of the things considered to be part of the sport. He just wants to compete.

In a sport such as wrestling, it’s easy to find the devout--those who are willing to give mind and body, heart and soul to the sport. Nothing is too much to ask of those willing to pay the price to be the best.

Justin Meier is not one of those wrestlers, but he’s still one of the best.

Meier, a senior who wrestles for Irvine High, is ranked first in Orange County and sixth in the state at 130 pounds. He loves wrestling, but makes no bones about his unwillingness to sign his soul away to the sport.

“I wrestle because I love it,” Meier said. “I love the competition. It’s fun. That’s why I got into it. What I hate, though, is all the other stuff that goes with it.”

Meier is referring to the endless conditioning, weight training, off-season wrestling and cutting weight. All the stuff the sport demands.

“Coach was always on me to do the other things. He always wanted me to go to a wrestling camp or do freestyle wrestling during the spring and summer. I said no way,” Meier said. “They leave me alone because they know it upsets me.”

Meier distinctly remembers his introduction to wrestling. Irvine Coach John Phillips came to one of his classes during his freshman year to talk about wrestling and present a wrestling video.

“That’s what did it for me,” Meier, 17, said. “I knew right then that wrestling was for me.”

Meier signed up for wrestling, but instead of doing all those cool things he saw in the video, he was thrust into a world of “stuff.”

He soon started to ditch wrestling class because of the sprints and drills. But a few months later, at the insistence of teammate Lambert Lo, Meier returned to the sport.

“He took me to a tournament. I’ll never forget it,” Meier said. “My hair was too long in the back and the refs wouldn’t let me wrestle. So one of the coaches took me into a back room and cut off my hair. I really looked stupid.”

Meier went on to win a frosh/soph Sea View League title. He started on the varsity as a sophomore.

“My sophomore year is a blank. I won Sea View League, but everything else is a blur,” Meier said.

By his junior year, he had joined the ranks of the county’s best. He won the Sea View League title again, then finished third in the Southern Section Division III finals and sixth at Masters, which qualified him for the State championships. He finished the season 41-9.

“I didn’t do as well as I thought I could have at State,” said Meier, who won twice and lost twice. “I don’t know, I get an attitude sometimes. I’d just had it with wrestling. I wanted to quit right then and there. Coaches were on me to do this and that. . . . I’d just had it.”

Said Phillips: “Justin is truly a unique individual. He has such natural talent and he catches on pretty quick. His style of wrestling is very unorthodox. He makes up his own moves but makes them work. And his moves, I couldn’t begin to show other kids how to do them.”

Meier is sometimes baffled at some of the things he has done on the mat. “I’ve tried to show some of the guys some of the moves I’ve done, but I can’t. It only seems to come out when I’m wrestling,” he said.

He is not blessed with extraordinary strength or stamina. Phillips said Meier’s success can be attributed to his agility and flexibility, calling him “Gumby-like” in his execution.

And Phillips has never seen Meier get psyched out. “He’s extremely competitive, which I think gives him an edge over most of his opponents,” Phillips said.

But one can’t help but wonder how good Meier could be. So far this season, he’s 34-3.

“I’ve wondered that myself,” Phillips said. “But that’s not Justin. He comes in here and puts in his two months and that’s it. Nothing more.”

For Meier, the answer is easy.

“When wrestling is over, that’s it. I could never become one of those guys who live and breathe wrestling,” he said. “If it got to that point, it wouldn’t be fun anymore. It would be like a job. And that’s not why I got into wrestling.”

One of Meier’s teammates and friends, Steve Ruiz, was one of the devout. Ruiz, a senior who was ranked second in the county at 189 pounds and probably would have made it to State championships, suffered torn knee ligaments at the Estancia tournament earlier this month that ended his high school wrestling career.

“I felt so bad for Steve,” Meier said. “When he got injured, I thought that it should have been me. Steve worked so hard. He did all that stuff and more. He put in his four years and was completely devoted to wrestling. And here I am. . . . I’ll never understand it.”

Since Ruiz’s injury, Meier has been forced into the role of team leader, something he never sought.

“Justin seems to have recognized that he needs to fill in for Steve,” Phillips said. “And that’s important to the others on the team.”

Meier, however, just shrugs at his leadership role. “I want the team to do well, and I’m having fun,” he said.

As he wraps up what could well be his final season of wrestling, his only regret is that he didn’t pay closer attention to his academics.

“I got a letter from Stanford the other day. But they wanted to know my (grade-point average) and stuff. When they want to know about my grades, I can only laugh. I tossed the letter,” he said.

Meier said the only way he would continue to wrestle is if he received an athletic scholarship.

“I hope to one day get it together and get a full-on job, but,” Meier added with a smile, “it has to be fun.”