A Mania for Wrestling

A quick glance around the two-day Five Counties tournament at Fountain Valley High was all that was needed for a testament to prep wrestling’s popularity.

The stands, which hold about 3,000, were packed both days. People of all ages and sizes, dressed in everything from the red and white of Santa Ana to the orange, blue and white of El Cajon Valhalla, roared, moaned, wrung their hands and stomped their feet with so much volume the ruckus could seemingly be heard from Sacramento to San Diego, which covers the geographical spectrum of the 64 teams competing.

The crowd’s endurance was tested as well as the contestants’ during the Jan. 15-16 tournament. Sometimes they could view eight matches at once. The first day’s session had three elimination rounds and two consolation rounds, lasting nearly 10 hours. The next day’s session was even longer--four consolation rounds along with the championship quarterfinals, semifinals and finals that crowned champions in 14 weight classes.

And when the fans needed a break, vendors were selling everything from tournament T-shirts to the latest in wrestling attire, shoes and mats. Plenty of snacks were also available, although wrestlers, ever mindful of their weight, pretty much stuck to bananas and protein bars.

This was serious wrestling. The Five Counties is considered a preview of the Southern Section, Masters and state championship tournaments because the field usually attracts many of the state’s best teams.

Prep wrestlers are collegiate-style wrestlers, meaning if you can’t pin your opponent, you must outpoint him. It differs from Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling, which involve more throws.

It’s the style that has had a small yet steady growth through much of the 1990s.

The National Federation of State High School Assns., which takes an athletic participation survey of all sports each July, reported 19,585 California boy wrestlers in the 1992-93 school year. By the 1997-98 school year, that total had increased to 23,163.

“Wrestling is popular because most [wrestling] teams don’t cut athletes, so kids can stay in a program and mature to the varsity,” said Feargus McTaggert, assistant wrestling coach at Brea Olinda. “And the many weight divisions give kids an opportunity to compete at a high level against people their own size.”

Weight classes range between 103 and more than 250 pounds.

“For the smaller guys who can’t play football or basketball, it’s an alternative sport,” McTaggert said, “and kids today are looking for alternative and individual sports. That’s why wrestling is growing.”

Yet what is so appealing about a sport that, in a regulation six-minute match, has people bending and twisting arms and legs in an effort to get the opponent’s shoulder blades down on the mat long enough for the referee to declare a pin?

Brea Olinda senior Scott Ling said he likes the one-on-one competition that he doesn’t get in football. And Ling, 18, is an excellent football player. He was the Orange League’s 1998 MVP as a running back and will play football at the U.S. Naval Academy next fall.

“In football, you run a play and it usually takes about six seconds,” Ling said. “When you’re wrestling, you have to do it six minutes.

“I came out for wrestling last year as a junior because I was looking for something to stay in condition in the off-season, and wound up loving it. I wish I had gone into it when I was a freshman.”

Irvine heavyweight Josh Worthington, 17, who defaulted his first-round tournament match because of a back injury, said he liked the sport so much he gave up playing football to concentrate on wrestling.

“I played football as a freshman and football is nothing compared to wrestling,” said Worthington, a 6-2, 260-pound junior. “Wrestling takes every muscle of the body. And you can’t hide behind anybody; that’s the appeal. Once you get on the mat, it’s just you and one other guy.

“I never knew about wrestling until I started my freshman year. My first thought was Hulk Hogan. But this is different. I love it. I hope I can go on to wrestle in college. But if I don’t I will continue in the sport, hopefully coaching or something.”

Alex Solorio, a 215-pound senior wrestler who made it to the third round at Five Counties, was an All-Century League linebacker at El Modena last season. He agrees with Worthington that wrestling is the tougher sport. He said it’s one of the main reasons he would rather keep playing football when he goes to college.

“Football is harder on the muscles because of the [hitting],” said Solorio, 18. “Wrestling is harder on your mind and physical condition. When you get tired in wrestling you have to push yourself, convince yourself you’re not that tired. Your opponent won’t let you rest anyway.”

Santa Ana Success

Santa Ana, the county’s top-ranked team this season, had the best finish by any county team at Five Counties, placing third behind Poway and Valhalla.

The Saints are strong in the lighter weights. Senior Vince Aldana made it to the 103-pound quarterfinals. Senior Jose Najera reached the 112-pound semifinals and finished fourth. Jose Leon upset previously unbeaten Mike Simpson of Brethren Christian in the final to win the 119-pound title.

Coach Scott Glabb said Najera and Leon show a flair for the sport, even though neither wrestled until they were freshmen at Santa Ana.

“If you start wrestling at age 7 or 8 it’s a great advantage by the time you’re in high school,” Glabb said. “You can sense danger quicker than the kids who just come out.”

He said Cal State Bakersfield, which has been nationally ranked, has shown interest in Leon. Najera plans to go to Syracuse to study fine art but will not wrestle even though some other colleges have sent letters to see if he is interested. He said he’s not sure he’s good enough.

“If I put my mind to it I think I could wrestle in college,” said Najera, 18. “But it would be hard, so I’m just doing my art. It’s been a fun sport. And it showed me you can compete if you’re willing to work hard.”

Glabb’s biggest success story, however, might be Steve Avalos.

Avalos started wrestling as a freshman but was indifferent about the sport and school. “We had to stay on top of him, and his mother also pushed him to get his act together,” Glabb said.

Avalos said he was depressed his freshman year because of the death of his father, Uvaldo. “His death was hard on me and my brother Osvaldo,” Avalos said. “I started hanging out with the wrong crowd. But wrestling brought me back.

“I like the individualism of the sport. Win or lose, it’s all on you. There’s no one else to blame.’

His talent began to emerge as a sophomore, when he finished second in the Century League finals at 112 pounds. He was 49-4 overall and won the section Division III championship last year at 135 pounds. So far this season, he is 38-3, wrestling at either 145 or 152.

This was Avalos’ third trip to Five Counties. As a sophomore he lost his first-round match. As a junior, he was sick and could not compete. This year, Avalos reached the 145-pound final. He lost, 9-4, but had a good showing against Bakersfield Foothill’s Max Odom, the defending state champion.

“Coach said I was the first Santa Ana wrestler at that weight to make it the final, which was great,” Avalos said. “It would have been nice to beat him, but this is not the last tournament. I would like to wrestle him again.”

Making Weight

Besides the matches, the toughest thing wrestlers face is weight control.

It’s not as much of a problem if the wrestler moves up a weight class. If not, wrestlers must be vigilant about what they eat and drink.

That’s why they were often seen skipping rope or running around the Fountain Valley campus between their matches.

Wrestlers have done crazy things to keep weight off, such as chewing gum to draw water from the body and spitting it out, or doing sprints in rubberized and plastic suits, or taking a diuretic the night before to try to eliminate as much fluid as possible.

Coach Mike Provenzano of Fountain Valley, the tournament director, said it became illegal four years ago for wrestlers to use plastic or rubber suits to dehydrate the body before a weigh-in, “although I’m sure some of it still goes on.”

But, he said, a rule change by the National Federation of State High School Assns. this season has made it easier for wrestlers to stay near their competitive weight.

If an athlete wrestles within two days of the tournament, he gets a pound allowance for each day. So if a 103-pound wrestler had competed two days before the tournament, he is allowed to weigh 105. And should that wrestler have matches the second day, he is given an additional three-pound allowance, raising the maximum weight to 108.

Wrestlers were weighed at the start of the tournament’s first day and at the conclusion of the first day’s second consolation round. If they were within weight requirements, there were no more weigh-ins and they could eat and drink whatever they wanted. If they did not meet requirements, they would be weighed again on the second day.

“I feel kids wrestle better when they’re not cutting so much weight,” Provenzano said. “Four to five pounds they can lose in no time. When they’re trying to eliminate 10 pounds of water in a day, the body lacks everything it needs to run efficiently.

“There are still kids who cut a lot of weight before a match. But there is a [growing] consensus among coaches that having kids wrestle close to weight all the time so they’re not killing themselves the first couple of matches [because of weight loss].”

Provenzano said the California Interscholastic Federation did a study five years ago at the tournament for an idea of how much weight wrestlers could put on after official weigh-ins.

“We weighed them the first day and that night. . . .somehow, one kid gained 15 pounds in 10 hours. He was so dehydrated he was like a sponge. He ate and drank and gained weight like no one I’ve seen.”