While I procrastinate editing my latest book, When Nobody Cares I started reading through some of my blog entries. There was one where I mentioned a wrestling coach. I guess with the beginning of wrestling season it is a good time to tell the tale.
I was a wrestling referee for more than 30 years and my former coach worked as a trainer. I often joked that if he did this to me today instead of 1976, he would be in jail.
In my junior year in high school, I wrestled at 138 pounds, and I had a hard time making weight. This is in a time where it was a badge of honor to cut (lose) to most weight. I came out at the beginning of the season at 180 pounds and in about six weeks made 138 pounds. So, a little over 40 pounds.
There was one Friday when I came in eight and a half pounds overweight. We had a match the next day. I knew I was overweight by a lot and was the first one in the locker room. I had a knack for picking the lock on the door. Most days the head coach didn’t come to open the door because he knew I picked the lock.
I got dressed quickly in my plastic and cloth sweatsuits, basically everything I had. The only person I told was my best friend Wynn who wrestled at 132 pounds. When the assistant coach who was tough as it gets and wrestled for Michigan came in. He saw me dressed and asked how much I was over. I did what any normal kid does, I lied. I said I was three and a half over.
You have to understand how my best friend Wynn was. Being around him for more than a minute it was impossible not to like him. And he loved to laugh. When I said three and a half, he let out a chuckle. Which prompted the assistant coach to make me take everything off and get on the scale. He set the scale at three and half over and I thought the bar would break the scale. By the time he got to eight and a half I thought he would kill me.
At my high school basketball was king and our team was one of the best in the state. If you wanted a seat you had to get to the game early. The coach didn’t give me a break during the entire practice. Because there was a basketball game that night we practiced on the court. Imagine this today. People were getting their seats for the game. There I am at center court on a piece of mat in the referee’s position (basically, on my hands and knees). The coach has his knee on my ankle and yelling at me to get up. And each time I do he gives me a cross face and knocks me down. Today, it would be on the non-stop news cycle.
It would have been nice if that was the end. After practice the coach put me in one of those big stainless-steel whirlpools. The temperature was at 118 degrees, two degrees below scalding. After the practice and the whirlpool. I lost eight and a quarter pounds in about three hours or a little more. My friends to this day still laugh about what happened next.
I went to the shower and asked the guys not to turn them on until I got on the floor. It was a community shower with I think ten shower heads. When you flip the master shower switch there is cold water that comes out before it turns hot. I laid on the floor and when the cold water hit me. My friends told me there was steam coming from my body.
I am retired as a referee now and when I see my old coach we laugh about it. My parents never knew because in those days what happened at practice stayed in the room. Oh, by the way. I won my match. I pinned the guy in the first period.
Mike Settino 