Worst Wrestler…Ever

I was a Slatington High School wrestler.  I was not a very good wrestler. In fact, if I had forty matches (which sounds about right) I am lucky if I won three.  Yeah. I sucked. But I was good at not getting pinned. I’ll take some consolation in that.  I may have been a pretty bad wrestler, but wow did I have fun and learned some valuable lessons.

Wrestling, real wrestling not WWE, is a sport you either love or hate. It can be boring to watch I will admit.  But I don’t know that I ever worked harder than at wrestling practices. They were brutal and exhausting. We started wrestling practice while football was still in season. when football ended, many players would switch to wrestling and many said “no way! those practices are way too hard.”  So I take some consolation in that too.

In my sophomore year, we got a new assistant coach. He was our football coach, Jack Cassebaum,  and he was crazy in many ways. I plan to write a post just about him in the near future.  He was a real tough guy. He pushed us hard. I remember one practice he made us do crossfaces (basically, you are on top of your opponent and you throw your left arm across his face to turn his head and weaken him for your next move).  He made us do crossfaces on our practice partners until their nose bled!  My partner was a good friend named Bruce Roth. We were laughing all the time we are doing this and my nose does not bleed easily!

I don’t know if that experience helped me be a better wrestler. My record says no. But what I learned from Coach Cassebaum was to always give it your all even when you are losing. I remember a practice, after a meet in which the whole team did poorly, where he pointed me out as an example of Bulldog Pride and never giving up.  He said “You should all be like Denny here. Loses every week, but tries his best.” More consolation.

In my senior year, the only way I was going to wrestle was to get down to 133 pounds. I weighed 154. But I almost did it. For a month I starved myself, sat in a steamy shower in a rubber suit, and spit in a jar on the way to a meet and to weigh in.  First meet, I missed making weight by two ounces. Arghhh.

Other good memories of wrestling were the team bus trips, the oranges after your match, the camaraderie of your fellow wrestlers.  I remember when I was in ninth and tenth grade, the senior boys would harmonize perfectly, in the shower, to The Beach Boys song Barbara Ann.  I also remember my mom on her feet screaming support when I was in a match. Yes, a little embarrassing but she died during my sophomore year of wrestling and I never heard her after that.

So was I the wort wrestler ever at Slatington High School? Arguably, yes. But was it an experience that I will treasure for the rest of my life? Inarguably, yes.