Baer Solved Weighty Problem With Little Difficulty

Steve Baer stepped onto a scale Monday and saw that he weighed 150 pounds.

He was badly overweight.

The Agoura High graduate, a fifth-year senior at Nebraska, wrestles in the 126-pound division.

With hopes of winning a national championship, Baer, who stands 5 feet 6, needed to lose 24 pounds by Wednesday, weigh-in day for this weekend’s NCAA tournament at the University of Iowa.

But like most wrestlers in lower weight classes, Baer is used to the dramatic and weekly gains and losses.

“I can knock it down to 140 just cutting down on my eating and practicing for three days,” he said.

How does Baer shed the other 14 pounds? He puts on a rubber jump suit and rides a stationary bike inside a sauna. It’s a weekly routine.

“It’s all water . . . dehydration,” he said. “I can lose eight pounds in an hour. I’m pretty well accustomed to it by now--five years of college.”

He is an expert at rapid weight loss and a wizard on the mat.

Baer is ranked fourth in the country by Amateur Wrestling News but seeded third among 32 wrestlers in his division at the NCAA championships, which started Thursday.

Baer entered the tournament with a 31-5 record and quickly dispatched Jim Schopf of Millersville (Pa.), 4-1, and Brian Stewart of Illinois, 9-4, in the first two rounds.

Baer won a gold medal in the Big Eight Conference tournament last week, scoring an 8-7 decision over top-seeded Dwight Hinson of Iowa State in the final.

“I’ve never been much of a technician or a speedster, but I just keep coming,” Baer said. “I usually don’t quit, and I haven’t wrestled too many guys that out-strengthed me.”

Baer finished fourth in the state in the 112-pound class his senior year at Agoura. He didn’t plan to wrestle in college. But Rocky Reininger, Baer’s part-time coach, persuaded him to stick with it.

Reininger, perhaps Baer’s biggest fan, has traveled to Lincoln, Neb., and Iowa City the past two weeks to see his protege.

“He’s a hero in the Midwest,” Reininger said. “Without a doubt, he’s one of the greatest athletes from (Agoura). He’s quick, strong, mentally tough and has a heart as big as California.”

Growing up in Peekskill, N.Y., Baer excelled in youth league football, baseball, basketball and soccer. By the time his family moved to Agoura in his junior year, he had dropped all those sports in favor of wrestling, to which he was introduced in the eighth grade.

“I guess because it was so different,” Baer said. “I was good at it right away. It came natural. It felt right. And it was kind of mysterious.”

Reininger, who had once coached at Indiana State, taught Baer new moves and training techniques and kept his student interested.

“I thought I was done after high school,” Baer said. “But when Rocky approached, I thought, ‘Oh, no.’ Rocky kept telling me (wrestling in college) would be better than being a Rhodes scholar.

“It brought so many things to his life. It builds character. And when you’re out in real-life, one-on-one situations in business, you know you’re going to win.”

As an NCAA qualifier last year, Baer lost, 3-2, to Cornell’s David Hirsch, a nemesis from his days as a youth wrestler in New York. Hirsch went on to win the national title.

Baer has twice lost to second-seeded Sanshiro Abe of Penn State. The scores were 9-6 and 10-6. Baer said he can get to the final if he changes his strategy against Abe.

“I’ve come out against him too aggressive,” Baer said of Abe, who scores most of his points on takedowns. “He’s got a real quick double leg and gets underneath you. But he has been close with guys that I kill.”

With a strong showing in the NCAA tournament, Baer said he could be tempted to try out for the U.S. national team with the prospect of competing in the Olympics. But the years on the mat have taken their toll.

Wrestling has left him with a degenerative disc in his lower back that can cause numbness in either arm. He has had surgery to remove cartilage in his right knee and has suffered numerous minor injuries.

“It’ll be hard to let it go, because I’ve wrestled and worked out every day for so long,” he said. “But I can say almost definitely that I’m done. Of course, I said that the first time. But I’d like to pursue other avenues.”

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Around the country: Nada Kawar (Crescenta Valley), a redshirt freshman at UCLA, placed fourth in the women’s shotput in the NCAA indoor track and field championships in Indianapolis last weekend.

Kawar improved her personal best to 53-6 1/2 and moved to fourth on the all-time UCLA list.