Nineteen Seconds of Sports Fame

In the previous issue of the Howell County News, I enjoyed reading Lonnie Whitaker's musings on attending a class reunion and seeing old friends at the Alumni Picnic for Willow Springs High School. I was there as a graduate of the class of 1970 and enjoyed it too, though "old friends" is getting a little too real. Wandering in and out of conversations among the guys, I often heard fond reminiscences of their glory days as hometown sports heroes or members of a winning team. 
I usually duck out of those conversations because I have nothing to add. I suffer from total disinterest in sports, though everyone in my bloodline is or was a borderline sports fanatic. Our father played basketball at MU Columbia, and my brothers enjoyed high school participation in all the sports offered and did well. All my uncles played, two of them (Stringer and Gauldin) becoming coaches at urban schools after their high school careers. My eldest daughter married a coach. I married a cheerleader. But somehow, I didn't get that sports gene.
My folks were Cardinal fans through and through, and when I was around six, I got a baseball uniform that hung on my skinny frame and took to the little league field, or whatever it was called then. My skill set put me in left field, where through trial and error, I deduced my main objective was to dodge the ball when a hit came my way, then pick it up and throw it in. I tried to catch a couple of flies and got smashed in the face for my effort. As they say, "No good deed goes unpunished." 
Dodging flying balls was a valuable skill in high school, where, because I did not play sports, I landed in "P.E." or physical education class. The class was always run by a coach who did his paperwork while watching us try to kill each other with dodgeballs a bit larger than softballs. A fellow with big hands could make those things leave a mark. My small size and agility made me a challenging target, while the bigger guys, like my P.E. buddy Jim Bunch, got nailed pretty fast. There wasn't a lot of structure to the class, but we had fun. The other amusement was throwing a large ten-foot round ball into the center of the gym and letting the opposing teams fight to push the ball to the back wall of the opposite side.
In my sophomore year (1967-1968), Coach John Dilks told my P.E. class the school was buying mats and equipment to begin a wrestling program at Willow Springs High. Trying out for the team meant we were offered an escape from P.E., so Jim Bunch and I signed up and went in on the buddy program. We remained lifelong friends. Jim went to Vietnam after high school, and because of our post-school jobs in law enforcement, we talked to each other regularly over the years. 
We ran laps in the Munford Gym in training and learned the basics, including a few holds. We were issued maroon and white onesies and thought we were ready to wrestle!
I won my first match by a decision. That is where you could not pin your opponent but won because you accumulated the most points. Unless you've experienced it, you might not know just how brutal and exhausting the three two-minute rounds to get to that decision are. I wrestled in the ninety-five-pound weight class, meaning I had to stay under that weight to remain in the class. I ate toast, drank Diet Dr. Pepper to make weigh-in, and kept winning. At the end of the year, as we went into the SCA district competition in Springfield, I was undefeated. After all, I was wrestling ninety-five-pound weaklings like myself, most of whom were Freshmen!
Before a match, the opposing teams were seated across from each other in the order of their weight classes, so you got to have a good look at your opponent and size him up. If you used that time wisely, you tried to "psych out" the other guy and make him think you were tough, but that wasn't going to work in this case. My opponent strutted to his seat and gave me a cold stare. He looked like a miniature bodybuilder, which I guess he was. From the other end of the row, Jim Bunch waved, grinned at me, and said, "You're gonna get your butt beat!" I agreed. Everyone in the room agreed.
Mine was the first; the other matches hadn't started yet, so all eyes were on us. In the first period, the contest begins with both wrestlers on their feet and facing each other. The referee blew his whistle, and instantly I was attacked. He dove into my legs, knocked me backward flat on my back, and put me in a hold where he wrapped one arm around my neck and placed the other in my crotch. That doesn't seem as strange today as it did then. When you put someone in that hold, you try to use leverage to drive the other wrestler's shoulders to the mat and hold them there until they tire out.
I knew I was toast as I struggled to break free. In the process, my opponent maneuvered too high on my chest, and I somehow managed to buck him up and flip him over my head. As I landed on top, I put him in the same hold he had just had me in and hung on for dear life. I knew it wouldn't be pretty if he got out of my hold. At nineteen seconds into the match, I pinned him, and the entire gym erupted. Everyone knew I was a goner, and this was a miracle! My coach ran up and hugged me and said, "Your dad is going to be so proud of you," and he was.
If I won, my next match would send me to the next level and on my way to state championships. I was pinned in the second round and ended my season. I can tell you the name of my opponent, Jamie Buzzard of Seneca. My high school wrestling career ended when the coach was not retained the following year. I lettered the first and only year I participated in sports. When I finished the year at one hundred and three pounds and was released from my starvation diet, my weight shot up to one hundred fifty pounds that summer.
To my knowledge, our team didn't win a match that first year, but now I had creds with the jocks. I was inducted into the Letterman's Club and made their Secretary. I was also elected Secretary of the Industrial Arts Club - I had neat handwriting. I didn't bother buying a letter jacket and returned to P.E. class the following year. The wrestling program laid dormant my Senior year but was revived later.
Though today I still can seldom tell you a thing about who is winning in any sport and am oblivious to famous sports figures, I did get an appreciation of the importance of high school sports in a well-rounded education. In this experience, I gained confidence in myself and my teammates and learned that tenacity could yield rewards in the face of hardship. Go Bears!
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