Wrestling With Limitation
It’s 5:40 a.m. and two wrestlers are sitting in Reseda Cleveland’s gymnasium. It’s dark outside. There’s no traffic yet on the 101. Overnight construction crews continue their work.
But Gilbert Sanchez and Rafael Salvador are ready to begin practice.
The Cleveland wrestling program is in its inaugural season. Because the school’s two gyms are booked by the boys’ and girls’ basketball teams after school, wrestlers have no choice but to condition before the crack of dawn.
“You can’t train wrestlers and basketball players if they’re sharing a gym,” wrestling Coach Robert Moose said. “So I just thought it would be best to practice in the morning, even though we’d lose time and it would make it difficult to get kids out for the team. It was the only option.”
They only practice for 90 minutes a day and lack in weight training because the school’s weight room is in disarray after being vandalized.
The Cavaliers are 2-2 in the City Section this year, with wins against Canoga Park and North Hills Monroe and losses to San Fernando and Reseda. They have qualified for the upcoming City dual tournament on Feb. 19 at Woodland Hills Camino Real.
Cleveland also has two City title contenders in Sanchez, a junior at 160 pounds, and senior Thomas Marriquin at 125. Sanchez is 16-1 with 12 pins, including a 14-13 victory over two-time defending City champion Ricky Aguirre of San Fernando on Jan. 29. Marriquin is 10-4 with 10 pins.
“The fact that these two guys have done so well with only one year of experience and no facilities is amazing,” Moose said.
At 5:50 a.m., 10 minutes before practice officially starts, eight more wrestlers have arrived. That’s just enough boys to carry in the 30-year-old mats stored outside that the team bought from nearby Pierce College for $600.
Monroe Coach Paul Brumana recognized the archaic pieces when the two teams met in a dual Jan. 22.
“When I saw them roll out those mats, I said, ‘Hey, I think I may have wrestled on those things back in the ‘70s,’ ” Brumana said. “Sure enough, it was them.”
After the mats are carried in, Sanchez and Salvador lead the team in warm-ups from 6 to 6:30. About 10 more wrestlers arrive during this time.
“I have to be lenient about when they come in,” Moose said. “If I wasn’t, then I wouldn’t have a team.”
By 6:45 a.m. the gym is bustling with about 40 people, some wrestling, some not.
Brothers Gilbert and Eduardo Munoz are two of six students sitting doing homework while watching their teammates prepare, unable to participate because of academic ineligibility.
“We can at least watch the moves,” Eduardo said. “We have to learn them. That’s why we come here even when we can’t wrestle.”
Moose’s assistants, Daruosh Vaezi and Keramat Zerang, former members of the Iranian national team in the 1970s, are working with wrestlers, talking through translator Samantha Yaraghi, one of Moose’s former students.
Moose uses part of his own stipend as well as money gathered from fund-raisers to pay for Vaezi.
“I have limited experience in coaching ,” said Moose, who wrestled at Canoga Park in the late 1980s. “So I knew I needed help. Parents sold a lot of baked goods and Tupperware to pay for [Vaezi].”
Zerang is one of three or four volunteers who help with practice before going to work.
The practice schedule and a lack of familiarity with the sport contributed to an initial lack of participants.
“The problem with starting a new program in these areas is that when most parents think wrestling, they think WWF,” Brumana said. “So they say no way.” “
But the school’s new sport has bred anything but contempt.
“I’m thrilled. I had no idea it would be so readily accepted with the kids,” Athletic Director Mary Schellberg said. “I went to one of my first wrestling matches recently, because this is my first year with it too, and I loved it. I think I’m a converted wrestling fan.”
With the increase in the sport’s popularity, there is talk about converting an all-purpose room into a wrestling room next year. “When we traveled to Orange County [for the Esperanza tournament on Dec. 6], they had a wrestling room bigger than our gym,” Moose said. “They had weights and ropes and you could see our kids were a little amazed.”
But for now Sanchez is glad the opportunity exists.
“I’m just so happy to have a program ,” he said. “Maybe next year we’ll be able to practice after school and there’ll be a wrestling gym just for us. But whatever happens, I’ll still be doing it. I’ve never been this dedicated to anything before.”