Foxcatcher Page 9

  When an opponent was beating me, the only way I could come back was with a surge of energy. But that energy had to be channeled into scoring techniques, otherwise it would become wasted energy.

  As a part of my exercise science major, a professor once tested my max VO2, which is the maximum volume of oxygen a body can consume. Mine was unbelievably low for a wrestler, or any athlete, for that matter. That meant my body didn’t consume oxygen efficiently.

  I desperately needed to improve my cardiovascular conditioning. Fortunately, for my junior season, the length of college matches was reduced from eight minutes to seven. Refs favored the more aerobic athletes on the mat, and I was an anaerobic wrestler. That year, freestyle matches were also cut back, from nine minutes to six. Reducing the length of matches was a significant benefit for me.

  I started off the season by winning at the Great Plains tournament for the second consecutive year, but at one weight class higher. That qualified me to represent the United States in a Russian meet later in the year.

  During a Wisconsin dual, I talked to an opponent during a match for the only time in my career. I was wrestling Dennis Limmex, who had been the top recruit out of high school at his weight. I was beating him pretty handily and caught him in a pinning combination called a “step-through crossface.” I had him on his back, and he was bridging his back while I had my left arm wrapped around his head.

  Because he was arched, his foot was within grabbing distance, and I grabbed it with my right hand and pulled it up high and arched his back even more so that his foot almost touched his head. Wrestlers call this “answering the phone” because you try to put your opponent’s foot up against his head.

  Limmex screamed.

  “Pin yourself,” I told him.

  “I can’t,” he answered.

  So I let up a little on the pressure. The turkey then tried to get out! So I pulled his foot up and almost had him answering the phone when he screamed louder. His coach, Russ Hellickson, ran out onto the mat and pulled me off his wrestler. Officially, I won by disqualification because of the coach’s interference, but I didn’t care how I won as long as I did.

  —

  For road trips, Coach Abel would stuff us like sardines into the school’s Winnebago. We drove to Chicago, where I lost to Ed Banach, by a 5–4 score, for the fourth consecutive time in the finals of the Midlands tournament at Northwestern University. On the same road trip, I lost to a freshman from Kentucky whom I was leading 8–0. I turned him to his back and he didn’t even reach for the back of my head. He just arched. That ref had been calling defensive pins that favored Kentucky. A defensive pin is when one wrestler is on bottom and the guy on top turns him to his back, and the wrestler on bottom reaches back and grabs his opponent’s head.

  The Kentucky freshman never grabbed my head, but the ref called another defensive pin and I lost. I got so angry that I threw my headgear and challenged the ref to a fight right there on the mat. I wouldn’t back down from my threat, and that cost our team a two-point penalty.

  That was a miserable road trip, and the ride in the crowded Winnebago wasn’t much better.

  From that road trip, I traveled to the Soviet Union for the Tbilisi tournament, which was considered the toughest tournament in the world. I finished fourth, but my mind was more back in the States than there.

  I roomed with Syracuse wrestler Gene Mills, who was known as “Mean Gene the Pinning Machine.” I woke up during the middle of one night and Gene was gone. I sat up in bed and started thinking about having to wrestle Ed Banach in the Iowa dual three days after I got home. Gene came back into the room from cutting weight and started washing his gear in the bathtub. He noticed me still sitting up in the bed in the near dark.

  “Schultzy, what’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I . . . hate . . . Banach,” was all I said.

  Gene laughed.

  I didn’t really hate Ed, but I did hate the fact that he kept beating me and I couldn’t figure out why.

  My body was all screwed up timewise when I got back to Oklahoma from Russia. I woke up at 3:15 P.M., fifteen minutes after practice started, raced over to the gym, and unlocked my locker. Coach Abel came in and yelled at me for being late, locked my stuff back in the locker, and kicked me off the team.

  I figured he was merely tense in anticipation of the Iowa dual, our biggest of the year.

  Then he threw Dave and Metzger off the team, too, and left the locker room. It was actually hysterical watching Coach lose it like that. I unlocked my locker and took my gear out to go cut weight.

  Coach never told us we were back on the team, but the next day he called our names when it was time to weigh in.

  At the Iowa dual, Dave and I departed from our routine. Usually, we would pace behind the row of chairs next to where the wrestlers sat. I would start pacing longer before my match than anyone else I ever saw. After I had completed my college career, a wrestler told me he had given me the nickname “the Pacer.” My pacing was my way of marking my territory. I didn’t look at anyone as I walked back and forth, but I made sure everyone saw me, as though I was declaring, “I’m here, and this match is mine.”

  But that day, with me scheduled to face Ed, Dave suggested we instead go to a secluded room to get off the arena floor for a while. Dave found a room and sat against a wall. A kid, probably around nine or ten years old, walked into our room looking for a restroom. Dave pointed the kid down the hall. Years later, I heard from that boy. He had grown up and contacted me to ask if I remembered him coming into our room. I told him I did. He told me, “I’ll never forget that moment. As soon as I walked in and saw you guys, I could feel the intensity in that room so thick that you could have cut it with a knife.”

  Dave’s match was before mine, and he wrestled King Mueller. King had a heavily wrapped knee, and Dave beat him pretty bad. During the match, Dave had King’s wrapped leg up on a high single and performed a brutal move I called a “knee-breaker.” The Amateur Wrestling News ran a photo from that match right as Dave was taking King down. King’s mouth was wide-open as he yelled, and all his fingers were sticking straight out as if he had been electrocuted.

  My match with Ed was a barn burner. We exchanged the lead probably five or six times, and I was trailing 9–8 with ten seconds left. I hit Ed with a limp arm fireman’s carry to a high-crotch and deposited him on his butt by running the pipe. I looked up into the arena to witness eleven thousand people simultaneously jumping out of their seats, screaming. My takedown came with two seconds left, and I won 10–9 to give Ed his first loss in two years.

  Going into the heavyweight match to end the dual, we were tied 17–17 with Iowa. Our heavyweight was Steve Williams. Steve was a great heavyweight despite wrestling only two and a half months of the year. He was on a football scholarship and didn’t join the wrestling team each year until after Christmas break. Steve wound up becoming a four-time NCAA All-American in wrestling, and he finished second at that year’s NCAAs to the future great Olympic heavyweight Bruce Baumgartner. Not too shabby for a part-timer. It’s scary to think about how dominant a wrestler Steve would have become if wrestling had been his main sport.

  More important, Steve had a great heart. Whenever we had to cut weight a couple of days before a match, even though he didn’t have to cut as a heavyweight, he’d put on plastics and sweats, run around the room with us, and get on the stationary bike just like us. He did it for one reason: He wanted to suffer along with us, his teammates. That tells you what kind of man Steve was.

  Steve gained fame after college with a successful career as a professional wrestler, where he was better known by his ring name, Dr. Death. Steve died in 2009, at the age of forty-nine, from throat cancer. He had a heart of gold. I loved him, and I miss him.

  At the Iowa dual, Steve faced off against Ed’s twin brother, Lou. To give a good indication of what the part-timer Steve was up against that
day, Lou won an NCAA championship during his career and took gold at 220 pounds in the 1984 Olympics.

  Steve and Lou tied their match, and the dual ended in a 19–19 tie. It was one of the most exciting duals I ever participated in as a wrestler or as a coach.

  At the Big 8 Conference, I beat Perry Hummel, again in overtime, and Dave finished second at 167 to Oklahoma State’s Mike Sheets. We both had advanced to the NCAA tournament.

  CHAPTER 7

  Escape from Hell

  Mark Schultz is a good athlete, but it takes more than being a good athlete to be a good wrestler. It takes mental toughness, and I’m mentally tougher than Mark Schultz.” That’s what Ed Banach was quoted as saying in Amateur Wrestling News’s preview of the national collegiate championship.

  When the magazine’s writer interviewed me for the same article and asked how I thought I would fare in the tournament, I said I didn’t know but thought it would be like a footrace and come down to whoever was ahead at the very end.

  When I read Banach’s quote, I said to myself, If we meet in the finals, one of us is going to die.

  The wrestling room at Iowa State was superhot. I was in there cutting weight, and the room was packed with seemingly everyone competing in the tournament, including the guys at my weight.

  I made a point of not looking at anyone. Then a Stanford wrestler sat next to me, all happy and smiling, and tried to make small talk. I didn’t acknowledge him, got up, and kept cutting. There was no time to socialize, and being happy even for a second could have messed up my psyche. I never hated any of my opponents, but because of my low max VO2, I had to generate anger within me and then channel that anger on the mat. Instead of, say, punching my opponent in the face, I would channel that anger into executing a scoring move. That was difficult on a regular basis, and at times it felt as if I were having to create magic during every match to win.

  My closest match in the first three matches was an eight-point win in the quarterfinals. My opponent in the semifinals was none other than Perry Hummel. I beat him 2–1.

  Ed Banach would be my opponent in the final. He had won three of his four matches by fall and the other by a score of 17–5.

  In the fourth final on the last day of the tournament, Andre Metzger won at 142 pounds for the second consecutive year by defeating Iowa’s Lennie Zalesky in their second consecutive NCAA finals matchup. Then in the match just ahead of mine, Dave won his first national championship by getting revenge for his Big 8 finals loss against Sheets.

  With the next match on the schedule, I couldn’t take time to celebrate Dave’s win, but I was glad he had earned his own title in his senior year. I can’t imagine what it would be like now if Dave hadn’t won that one.

  Right before my match, I was in the back warming up and wondering how it came to pass that someone had created an event as cruel as the NCAA Wrestling Championships. I felt so much pressure in those tournaments that it seemed inhumane. A few mats were rolled up in the corner, and on my way to the competition mat, I sat on those mats and prayed as hard as I could for God to please kill me immediately if I lost. I meant it.

  Our match was televised on ABC’s Wide World of Sports, and I believe it was the only match from the finals shown in its entirety. Al Michaels introduced our match as “the bout that everybody has anticipated.” It was, because I had won a championship the year before and with Ed having won titles as a freshman and sophomore at a different weight class from mine, there was already talk about the possibility of his becoming the first person to win four NCAA championships.

  I made a stupid move on an attempted throw almost two minutes into the match, and Ed caught me and scored on a takedown and a near fall to put me behind 4–0. Ed’s lead was at 5–2 late in the first period when I tried a move I had never attempted but had watched Ben Peterson, an Olympic champion, pull off in a World Cup. From locked up in an upper-body tie, I lifted Ed off the mat by kneeing him in the inside thigh near his groin, then turned to the side and threw him on his back. I held Ed on his back for two seconds and scored four points to lead 6–5 after the first period. I increased my lead to 10–7 heading into the third and final period, but because I knew I had enough of a riding-time advantage to get the additional point, in effect I led by four points.

  I had a 10–8 lead (not counting the anticipated riding-time point) with thirty seconds left. Ed would have to go for a four-point move, and when he went for the big throw with less than twenty seconds to go, I blocked it and scored a five-point move of my own to clinch the championship. I won 16–8.

  Normally, I was exhausted after a match. But winning my second consecutive title, and beating Ed Banach to do so, gave me a huge adrenaline surge, and as soon as the horn sounded, I sprang to my feet and performed my trademark backflip. Dave and Andre ran out to the center of the mat to celebrate with me. I jumped into Metzger’s arms and screamed at the top of my lungs toward the ceiling. When the ref raised my hand in victory, I jumped up and down, with the ref still holding my hand up high.

  At the conclusion of the tournament, I was announced as the championships’ Outstanding Wrestler.

  Our team broke the record for points scored in an NCAA championship, but so did Iowa and Iowa State, and we finished third. Isreal Sheppard ended his Oklahoma career that year by placing fourth at 158. I owed a lot to Isreal. He was the one person who allowed me to focus my rage against another human being. It had been practically no holds barred with him in practice, and with no remorse. It was 100 percent pure rage and anger channeled into the science of wrestling. Isreal still probably has no idea how lucky I felt to have trained with him.

  After the tournament, Ed came over to me and asked what weight I would be wrestling at the next year.

  I told him 177.

  “Good,” he replied. “I’m going 190.”

  Mike Chapman, editor of the wrestling magazine WIN, ranked my match with Ed as the second-best match in NCAA history, behind only the 1970 NCAA finals when Larry Owings ended Dan Gable’s 181-match winning streak.

  I had so much adrenaline flowing through me that on the flight home, when we had a layover in Kansas, I went outside, found a secluded area near the passenger loading zone, and ran wind sprints in front of the terminal.

  The following Monday, the OU student newspaper ran a front-page photo of Dave, Andre, and me celebrating at the tournament. We were the Sooners’ three national champions.

  •

  Two weeks after the NCAA championship, I was asked to represent our country at the World Cup in Toledo, Ohio. I had planned on taking a break after the NCAAs, but I felt I was in great shape after the season and said I would compete. Gable was the coach, and I couldn’t help but think that he would resent me for beating his guys in the finals two years in a row. But he didn’t. Gable qualified as the “enemy” in my book, but I liked him anyway. I looked at him as someone who respected anyone who was tough, regardless of affiliation.

  We were losing to the Russians at the World Cup when my turn came to wrestle Russian champion Vagit Kasibekov. I was making my way up the stairs when Gable said, “Now it’s time for our big guns.” I defeated the Russian 7–2, and all the Americans who followed me at the heavier weights won, too, and we won the World Cup.

  And I had won the respect of the legendary Dan Gable.

  —

  The success of my first two seasons at Oklahoma filled my senior year with the most pressure I’ve ever felt in my life. Being an NCAA Division I wrestler presented enough problems on its own. Going through a Division I wrestling season has to be the most painful, pressure-packed experience in sports.

  I didn’t like competition. In fact, it wouldn’t be too strong a statement to say that I hated it. Competition was the worst thing in the world, the most horrible, painful thing I had to suffer through. But I was stuck. I had to compete or I would be miserable for the rest of my life looking back and knowing I di
dn’t fulfill my potential. I knew I had something special in me, like a God-given gift, when it came to wrestling.

  Then add to that I was two-time defending NCAA champion and had been named the Outstanding Wrestler, and I had to deal with more pressure than at times I thought I could handle.

  With my success at the 1982 NCAAs, for the first time in my career I believed that I was a pretty good wrestler—excluding the first months after my high school state title when I thought I was pretty good. Dave had taken care of that issue for me by pounding me on the mat all summer. I didn’t need Dave to humble me going into my senior year, but I did need him to walk me through dealing with the pressure.

  Dave was the only person who could help when I felt the strain of being a wrestler. He had an uncanny ability to get me to quit worrying about stuff. I’d be stressing about something, and he’d say, “Don’t worry about it.” That was it. Nothing fancier than that. But when Dave told me to stop worrying, I would. If someone else had said the exact same thing, it wouldn’t have worked.

  But I didn’t see Dave as much as I had that year. He had married about a month before the 1982 NCAAs and moved into an apartment with his wife, Nancy. We still saw each other in the wrestling room, because Dave was helping as a coach and continuing to work out for freestyle competitions. But I wasn’t able to just hang out with him as I had before, when we were roommates in the dorms.

  Dave’s having finished his college eligibility made a difference, too. Being fully devoted to freestyle with no dual meets to compete in, he no longer had to worry about making weight as often. He only had to cut once every couple of months before big meets. We lost that bond college wrestlers share over the constant demands to make weight. Then with him being married and not sharing a dorm room with me, we lost much of what we’d had in common at OU. I felt as if our lives had suddenly jerked off the same path and into different directions.