NORTH JERSEY - It's well past 9 p.m. on a blustery Thursday night in February, but the little Cannonball Gym in Pompton Lakes is broiling with energy. The windows fog as the soggy air rises past 85 degrees, and the sounds of heavy breathing and sweaty bodies sliding on mats is heard as dozens of lean, hungry kids work under an oversized American flag hanging from the rafters.
In the world of combat sports, it's furnaces like this that serve as the heart of the sport and separate, through grueling practice, the participants from the hardened contenders who will be pumped into every vein of competition across the country. They are the "sine que non," that upon which everything else is built.
But unfortunately for those practicing at gyms like this the world over, the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) governing body, citing cost concerns, stripped them of their Super Bowl when it decided to drop wrestling - the first sport to be included in the ancient games that wasn't a footrace - from its roster for the 2020 Summer Olympics.
Cast by secret ballot, the February vote was taken after the governing body conducted a study of the 26 "core sports" from the London Games that looked at 39 factors such as TV ratings, worldwide audience, and ticket sales. Wrestling did not make the cut, and the world's oldest sport has now been lumped in with seven other "non-core" sports like squash, wakeboarding, and "roller sports" (like roller derby) to reapply for one open spot for 2020.
Ironically, the decision has done what the Games themselves were meant to do: draw together nations. Strange bedfellows have been made as traditional foes like Iran, the United States, and Russia have united to fight against what many say is an absolutely shocking decision.
The IOC leadership is slated to vote in September which sport to admit.
A fiery reaction
The IOC decision was an earthquake for the wrestling community, and "shock" and "confusion" were the first words on everyone's lips at Cannonball.
33-year-old West Milford resident Dave Maver stood just past the mats watching his 14-year-old son Damian go through the paces, and said his son's passion for the sport stems from his preference of relying on himself instead of a team. When he heard wrestling was getting the axe, Maver, a former wrestler himself, said he couldn't fathom it; wrestlers get little enough attention as is, he said.
Damian echoed his father's sentiments, and said that the news was devastating to young competitors.
"You don't get no money for (this), it's just guys that are willing to do it because they love the sport. It's guys who care," he said. "It's like you work so hard and you could think that you're on the top level but there's no Olympics...no one would even know you're good."
Don Bosco Prep senior Razohnn Gross, a nationally ranked state champion in the 195-pound weight class, agreed, and said that the dismissal was a "huge blow" because of the already-slim opportunities for those looking wrestle after college.
"Wrestling in the Olympics is really all you can do," he said. "Everybody wants to be an Olympic champ or an Olympic finalist...people are just really disappointed."
Jason Silverstein, 34, stood in Cannonball's weight room after training another youth wrestler and waited for the class to end. He wrestled at the prestigious Blair Academy in Blairstown, and went on to make All-American at Purdue University as a 125-pounder. He lives in Oakland, and expounded upon the benefits of taking up the sport. He learned his hardest lessons on the mat, he said.
"What you learn in wrestling you use every day in your life: persistence, tough-mindedness, dedication, and a never-give-up attitude," he said.
It could never be dropped from the Olympics, he'd thought - it was a mainstay if there ever was one.
"I was shocked. When I think about the Olympics, I think of wrestling and running. It didn't make any sense to me. It's one of those sports that transcends countries and cultures - every country, every African tribe in the jungle, has some form of wrestling," he said. "It embodies the Olympic spirit."
Worries about the future
Beyond the initial shock, though, many area coaches are worried that the razing of the sport's championship could lead to shrinking youth programs in the future.
Len Smith has coached wrestling in Pequannock for 34 years, 26 of them as the head coach of the Pequannock Township High School (PTHS) team. He called the IOC's decision "rash," but believes it came down to money and TV ratings. In the end, he said, it's a "slap in the face" to a sport that already requires sacrifice not only from its participants, but from the parents who pay for camps and clubs and drive their kids around to practices and competitions.
"It's a pure sport, a great sport, but it still doesn't get any type of respect because it's not a television sport. Nobody gives (wrestling) any type of recognition, and sometimes that alone will turn kids off," he said. "And some parents will say, 'Why am I going to make that sacrifice if the world doesn't?"
Pompton Lakes Coach Scott Mahoney agreed, and said that although the immediate affect might not be felt immediately in a state like New Jersey, it could be a "disaster" long-term - no Olympics might mean fewer college programs, and fewer college programs might mean fewer high school programs.
Mahoney agreed that money is likely driving the IOC's decisions.
"I don't think at that level they're getting the same (advertising monies) from wrestling as they are from track or swimming," he said. "You put wrestling on TV and you're not getting the same endorsements; you don't hear about guys like Jordan Burroughs, but he's just as great as Michael Phelps."
However, Mahoney said, there's been a swift, strong backlash, and the support for it to be reinstated has gathered.
"There's a big outcry. Everybody supports everyone in wrestling, and there's been a big push," he said.
Down, but not out
Others in the sport are not as concerned. Wayne Oakley, 31, was a two-time PTHS district champ from 1996-2000 and now coaches the town's respected rec team. He was surprised at the public's vocal outrage, especially among those who he doesn't count as "wrestling people." But whether or not it's in the Olympics, he said, kids will come.
"The young kids doing it...for the most part, they aren't thinking Olympics. I don't think the younger kids understand what's going on, they're just out there because they have fun wrestling," he said. "Wrestling is always going to be around."
Austin Wall, Cannonball's 31-year-old owner/operator, happens to agree.
It would take too many column inches to list all of the Wanaque resident's accomplishments, but suffice it to say that he was nationally ranked and undefeated at 189 pounds in his 2000 senior year at Indian Hills and was inducted into the NJ Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2007.
He's perhaps the embodiment of what sport -every sport - should be: wrestling since the age of six, he spent the first portion of his life learning and competing, and will likely spend the rest of it teaching. His first reaction to the IOC decision was anger.
"There's not a lot for this sport, and (the Olympics) are traditionally the highest accolade. It's a really big part of what this is, and it's a really big part of what the Olympics are. So none of it really makes sense," he said.
Wall splits the blame between the internal politics of the IOC and wrestling's own leadership, which he said had become "too comfortable" with what it perceived was an untouchable spot on the world stage.
"They took it for granted," he said. "The biggest fault that people in general have is that they get too comfortable. You don't live with edge anymore. Now you got a problem, because you think you're entitled to something...and that's so uncharacteristic of people who are a part of this sport...because the only people who get successful in this sport are people who work."
The move might even have been a necessary evil, he said, and has forced a shakeup of sport's international governing body, the International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles.
But regardless of whether the decision is reversed or not, American wrestling will continue, he said; between rec leagues and high school/college programs, there's simply too much infrastructure built up around it.
Overseas, however, the outlook might not be so rosy - with no college scholarship programs in the small Eastern European republics where wrestling thrives, the Olympics is the only incentive, and it lights a fire under every competitor.
Few understand that better than Wall, who experienced it firsthand during a 1998 trip to the Olympic Training Center in Belarus as a part of the "Wrestling Bridge to Peace" program.
"You don't understand what the Olympics means until you've experienced international competition, and what it means to other people," he said. "There's a very small percentage of people in America that wrestle with a sense of urgency that is necessary to win at the ultimate level - like your skin's on fire. You don't get that same bite (here.) But when I was there...everybody's got the bite. Everybody."
He related one story about a match with the third-ranked wrestler in the world who, just as the match started, punched him squarely in the face and gave up a penalty point just to assert his dominance.
"My coach told me, 'He's ranked third in the world. He wanted to make sure you knew who he was,'" said Wall. "Then he whooped me 13 - 1. That was my only point."
It's that kind of almost insane passion that would be lost worldwide.
"It would hurt a lot.... you're definitely walking on thin ice," he said.
But Wall has faith that his persistent brethren in the wrestling community will be able to change the IOC's mind. And if they can't....that's ok too. After all, he said, wrestlers have always been about the "love of the game" - nothing more.
"We're not getting any money. There is no glory here," he said, pointing to the mats. "Our glory lies in the character this builds, and the strength it builds, and the person it builds, and the families that it affects. I can teach my son humility, but not like wrestling can. I can teach him respect, but not like wrestling can. I can teach him dedication, but not like wrestling can."
If someone can enunciate that to the IOC, wrestling just might beat out roller derby for the 2020 games. But their work is certainly cut out for them.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/sports/194736831_Local_wrestlers__coaches_react_to_IOC_giving_wrestling_the_axe_in_2020.html
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