Nick's Freshman Year In High School---Part 4

Nick Suffers A GSW! (Gun Shot Wound) And Misses The Bill Dies Tournament.

As we entered the new year of 2014, Brunswick wrestling was looking good. We were all very excited about the remaining part of the schedule and knew, or at least felt very confidently, that we were going to take a handful of wrestlers down to the state tournament in Columbus in March. 

The wrestlers who we felt most confident about based on their performance thus far were our sophomore 120 pounder Josh Heil, our senior 126 pounder Brett Thomas, our freshman132 pounder (Nicky), and our junior 138 pounder Christian Camacho. We also felt that some of the upper middleweights had strong potential.

With that being the case we were looking forward to the up coming Bill Dies Tournament to continue to improve and showcase our talented lineup.

Life has plenty of unforeseen things planned for us however and one such incident side railed us, which gave us quite a scare and put things in perspective in terms of what was most important in life...our own well being.

In the Winter of 2013/2014, which I mentioned was one of the most brutally cold winters on record there were a lot of "Cold Days" in the Brunswick School District. What that means is the schools were closed because the temperatures were too extreme for the kids to wait for their buses and things like that.  Safety first. All about it.

However when the cold is that extreme the kids are pent up inside at home. As parents we try to do everything possible to keep them busy and entertained. In our house we had Alex sleep over for a few days. Alex you may remember from previous posts was our neighbor who Nicky and Kevin grew up with and I affectionately call him my "third son" as we were around each other so much as they were growing up.

Just as a side note...this is what Kevin looked like in 2014. He was still pretty wishy washy about wrestling but we kept him involved the best we could without forcing it on him...and he showed the same type of athleticism that Nick possessed.

Kevin with 1st place medal at an open tournament in Bay Village.

Well at some point during one of these brutally cold spells when Alex was visiting, Kevin and Alex decided it would be a great idea to go outside and shoot one of Nick's pellet guns. I really don't understand to this day why they thought this would be a good idea, especially in light of the fact that it was so cold out and there wasn't a snowballs chance in Hell that my wife or I would let them out in that kind of weather! All we can attribute it to is boys will be boys and they were a little stir crazy from being inside too long.

I have to state for the record that my boys have been shooting BB and pellet guns since they were young.  Around 7 years old. And they were supervised until Nick and Alex were teenagers. They understood not to point a loaded gun...of any type...at a person or animal. They did not hunt with them.  Just shot objects. Target practice. And I always had the guns put away in my room. Unloaded. 

I'm not trying to start a whole gun control debate here or anything of the nature. In hindsight I bear full responsibility for not having them locked up whereby they couldn't have access to them. 

Anyhow Nicky wasn't there as Kevin and Alex were planning to go outside. He was at a wrestling practice. The boys and coaches still had access to the wrestling room and the roads were clear and safe to drive upon, so why miss a practice?

Well when Nicky returned home it happened. Alex had, at some point earlier, put a pellet in the gun and Kevin was unaware of it. Nicky said something to Kevin and Kevin, not knowing there was a pellet in the gun, playfully lifted the gun, pointed it at him and pulled the trigger.  

Pam and I were upstairs.  There was no commotion or anything that we heard. Nick calmly walked upstairs and said that Kevin shot him in the neck. We went to him and there was blood trickling down from the entry wound which was located below his right ear.

The facts that the blood was not "spurting" out, that he was conscious, could move his head all around and was not in a tremendous amount of pain told me that, THANK GOD, it wasn't a life threatening injury. 

Pam was naturally upset and started to get excited and emotional seeing what happened but I calmed her down.  I didn't want Nick to be scared any more than he was either. He was remarkably calm. Love that kid. Always cool under pressure.

To be honest I thought it was a simple matter of just going to the emergency room and having it extracted. So we decided that Pam would run Nicky to the hospital, which is probably less than a mile from our house, and I would stay with Kevin and Alex. So that's what we did.

Kevin came upstairs and started crying, telling me he didn't mean to do it and that he didn't want Nicky to die. I reassured him that Nicky wasn't going to die and that we knew it was an accident and that he didn't have to blame himself.

I got all the facts out of him and Alex regarding the entire situation and we had a long talk about everything. As I said, I bear full responsibility for not having the pellet gun secured better. We all learned what is, I am sure, a life long lesson in the storing of BB & pellet guns.

As it turned out, the staff at the local hospital felt it was best to transport Nick to Rainbow Babies And Children's Hospital. They had X rays and MRI's done to locate the precise location of the pellet. What I thought was going to be a simple extraction process wasn't the case at all.

Because there was tissue trauma, the pellet looked as if it was lodged dangerously close to the spinal column in the upper cervical area. However several doctors felt that they really needed to let the tissue swelling subside to get an exact location and determine how to move forward. With that being the case, and because Nicky showed no signs of being in immediate danger, they sent Nick home with an appointment to follow up...but with instructions not to wrestle or do anything of a physical nature.

So that is why Nicky didn't wrestle in the Bill Dies Tournament his Freshman year. The team started to refer to the whole incident as the GSW, short for Gun Shot Wound, and busting Nicky's chops about not beating up on his brother any more etc... 

After a couple more weeks, on January 21st, we had a follow up visit (and X-Rays and MRI's) with Nicky's neurosurgeon. Here's Nicky in the waiting room that day:

After reviewing everything the Dr. ascertained that there was no need to surgically remove the pellet as it was lodged in muscle and wouldn't be moving around anywhere. Unless we wanted to. When the swelling from the tissue trauma subsided it revealed exactly where that was. We decided to not undergo surgery. And it has never bothered him since. And he's wrestled hundreds of matches and countless hours of wrestling practices since. 

It was close enough to the spine however to make us all realize how fortunate we were. It could have been so much worse. And the fact that the pellet didn't hit a major artery was another true blessing. All I know is that we love our sons with every fiber of our bodies and we are so very grateful that it turned out the way it did. This was one of those freak random occurrences that make you reevaluate all that is precious and significant in your life...and without a doubt Nick and Kevin are exactly that and so much more.

Thanks for taking time to read this latest installment on Nick's journey spanning his youth to high school wrestling career. Next installment will cover his first post season tournaments. Until next time, take care.

Nick Captures A Jr. High State Championship---Part 3

Winning An OAC Jr. High State Championship Is Making A Serious Statement

Nick Makes A Statement In Some Very Impressive Tournaments 

The OAC Jr. High State Tournament is a very reliable predictor of high school talent. If a wrestler can do well at the OAC Jr. High State Tournament..from what I observed over the last 15 years...chances are he's going to do very well in high school also. Physical maturity is starting to kick in...definitely for the middle weights and heavy weights...and many of the kids who have wrestled through the youth programs have developed their techniques and style to an impressive degree.

I heard many people say, during Nick's youth wrestling years: "this is only youth wrestling...it's just practice for high school. I completely agree. There isn't any need for a parent to be overly concerned about a young wrestler's performance during the youth developmental years. But by eigth grade Jr. High State's absolutely does mean something. And if you disagree with me then go to the OAC website and look at how the top placers...in all the weight categories...fared during their high school years. You will quickly see that there's a strong correlation between the high performers in Jr. High and the high performers in high school. Are there exceptions to this? Of course there is. But Jr. High States IS more than practice and winning it is certainly making a statement that your wrestler is usually very well prepared for high school.

So picking up from where we left off Nick is in the middle of his eight grade season. He wrestled in the Super 32 and a few other good tournaments but there were some other very competitive tournaments to wrestle in before OAC Districts came around.

Two such tournaments were in PA. The notoriously tough Young Guns tournament and North Hills tournament. At the Young Guns tournament pinned Turner Gray, his QuarterFinals opponent wrestling out of the OMP club. Here's the match:  

He then faced, and pinned, Michael McIntire, a solid Ohio wrestler who wrestled out of the Akron Wrestling Club.




In the Finals Nick won by decision over a game young wrestler out of the OMP club, Anthony Boeh, 6-4. You can see in these videos during Nick's eighth grade season that he was putting things together quite nicely and you can hear Coach Heil giving him timely coaching cues to which Nick responded very well to. Here's his Finals Match:




Young Guns was a good win and confirmed that Nick was headed in the right direction before States with just minor improvements to be made.  Here's a picture of him with his bracket, medal, and a nice hoodie that he was awarded. You can see him wearing it proudly when he posed with Kevin and I after Kevin won a tournament in Medina. Good times.

There were three good tournaments after the Young Guns tourney that Nick wrestled in. A week after Young Guns Mike Heil took his TWC boys back to PA for another very competitive tourney, the North Hills Open. Nick pinned Tyler Grine of Burnett's Trained Wrestling to start the tourney and then pinned Christian Hyrb from Beaver PA in the Quarter Finals. In the Semi Finals he teched Team Erie's Shimeir Jones 16-1 to advance to the Finals where he lost by decision to a solid 9th grader from the OMP Wrestling Club, Logan Heinl, 9-4.

On 1-12-13 he wrestled in an outstanding regional tournament. The Philo Electric Invitational was known to bring great wrestlers around from Ohio, PA., W. Va., Mi., and even Georgia. We traveled down with the Brecksville Club and I was really excited to see if Nick would meet up with a boy from PA. who was very good...Cameron Coy.

Nick opened up the tourney by pinning Monte Tremonte from Medina Root. He then decisioned a Georgia wrestler from Team Minions, Cody Cochran 6-0. 

Nick got his chance to wrestle the highly touted Cameron Coy in his next match. Coy won by major decision...almost teching Nick 16-2. To be honest I was shocked. Once again a real wake up call to the talent that was out there throughout the country. It's one thing to be one of the best in your state...but it's a whole different ball game to be the one of the best in the country. I remarked to my friend Jimmy Fields that Coy "put on a cradle clinic" at the expense of Nick. 

Coy turned out to be an elite high school wrestler as well. Throughout his high school career he was always at the very top of the national rankings, culminating in his number one national standing in the 152 weight class his Senior year. He was a 3 time State Champion, only losing his Sophmore year to Sam Krivus. Krivus was no slouch either...a two time State Champ and a three time Super 32 Champion. Here's a picture of  high school age Coy:

     

Sorry no videos but the last tournament that offered Nick a look at some quality competitors within his weight class was the West Virginia Duals held on 1/25/13. Nick wrestled with the Brecksville Club and pinned and techedfalled his first three opponents until meeting up with a very game Joseph Koontz, out of the AWC, in the SemiFinals.  Nick decisioned Joe 6-5 and it was a very good match to watch. In the Finals he met up with a Golden Cross opponent, Michael Atkinson, who Nick majored 8-0.

The next post will be covering the Brecksville District Tournament and the OAC Jr. High State tournament. It was a great year of wrestling so far with Nick performing very very well.  We had high expectations for a very solid State performance based on this. Thanks for reading this blog thus far.   

Nick Sets His Eyes On A Jr. High State Championship

Two Years To Prepare For High School Wrestling

Junior High Can Be Quite The Challenge

My oldest son Nick began Summer session at West Virginia University a couple weeks ago. He earned an athletic scholarship to attend and represent WVU after an outstanding high school career in which he became only the second wrestler in Brunswick High School history to place at the OSHAA State Championships Tournament 4 times. 

This blog, if you've found it for the very first time, is chronicling Nick's journey from his youth wrestling days to his last high school match. At this point in my blog Nick is just entering Jr. High school as a 7th grader...after winning a youth state championship in 6th grade.

But life isn't all about wrestling, and Nicky (as we call him in our house since my name is Nick also) always had a well rounded life. In 7th grade he attended N. Royalton Middle School, had many friends, and enjoyed life off the mat as well. Here are a few pics of Nicky with his younger brother Kevin waiting for the school bus on his first day of 7th grade and Kevin's first day of 4th grade. 

One thing about Nick that I noticed as he was growing up was that it was rather easy for him to leave wrestling alone. What I mean by that is when he wasn't at practice or somewhere competing, he had no problem finding things to do or friends to do them with. He had many friends who didn't wrestle, and he enjoyed their friendship as much as he did his wrestling friends.

Kevin and Nicky had/have the typical big brother little brother relationship that most brothers experience. Kevin went out for wrestling in 2nd and 3rd grade...but didn't take to it even though he showed the same potential Nick did when he first started. He didn't wrestle at all his 4th grade year, and I pretty much resigned myself to the fact that it wasn't for him. 

Here's Kevin's very first wrestling match when he was just 8 yrs. old. It's one of my all time favorite wrestling videos because of how Nicky is rooting his brother on and because of the little celebration Kevin has when he wins. Too damn cute.


   
He began wrestling in 5th grade when a few of his friends decided to wrestle and has stayed with it ever since. Wrestling is definitely not the type of sport you can force on your kid, and I know many wrestling dads who have multiple sons, some who don't wrestle at all. So I'm very grateful that Kevin chose the toughest of all sports to participate in given the fact that he could have easily picked another sport to take part in and have our full support.

In my opinion (this blog is, after all, titled The World According To Nick) it's important to recognize the attributes of each of your kids, the unique characteristics that make them who they are, and to develop a deep appreciation for these attributes lest they go unnoticed...or worse yet by far...neglected. How can one foster a loving, caring, life long relationship with ALL their children without making the effort to do so based on their childs interests? 

As Kevin was growing up we saw that although he is himself very athletic, he doesn't seem to have the same competitive drive to push himself in sports to the degree that his older brother does. Simply doesn't seem to be as important to him. By no means do I consider it a character flaw. I am absolutely convinced, knowing him as only a father can know a son, that Kevin is going to excel in life and already is doing so academically and socially. That's not to say that his competitive drive won't manifest itself more as he makes his way through high school...it's just saying that he's his own person and doesn't have to have his brothers success to get a lot out of the wrestling. The vast majority of wrestlers never experience the type of success that Nicky experienced...yet I'm sure every single one of them would say they grew as a person because of the life lessons developed both in competition as well as the practice room.  

He enjoys being fit, reading, drawing, playing his video games, conversing about varied subject matters and has inherited the quick wit and humour that runs in our family. He's loving and caring and even though much of our family's time and energy has been devoted to Nick's wrestling, we have always taken great care to make sure Kevin feels just as valued as Nick every single day of his life. Here's a few more pictures of my boys just having fun throughout the year. Heck I even consider Alex my son! He was always around as he was growing up.  Lot's of great memories with these three.

In preparation for Nick's 7th grade season we continued to do the things that led us to having the success that he experienced thus far. A couple Summer camps at Tom Roehligs, working out 3 times per week (all bodyweight training still at this point...no weights other than weighted pull-ups), and one Summer tournament just for a little competition. We also continued Tom's Fall Club.  I knew at this point that Nick was a gamer, and I wasn't worried about all the other guys who were criss crossing the country trying to win every national tournament there was instead of letting their kid enjoy their childhoods. 

After OAC States on 3-20-11 Nick didn't compete for nearly 4 months! The Summer tournament I entered him in was the annual Lutheran West tournament on 7-15-11. The next tournament he wrestled in was nearly 3 months later at the Green Bulldog Round Robin on 10-6-11. So in 7 months he only competed once! I wasn't paranoid about Nicky losing ground. I felt it was the healthiest thing I could have done for him...both physically and psychologically. I wanted him chomping at the bit to compete when the season rolled around. 

As Nick was growing in size Tom Roehlig could wrestle with him more and course correct him when necessary. Another huge advantage of going to Tom's regularly was that Nick could wrestle with Ivan McClay on a regular basis. In 2011 Ivan placed 3rd at States (Division 1) as a Sophmore at 112 lbs. 

Ivan was great with Nicky and worked with him regularly as they built a friendship. They actually knew each other for  few years prior to this, as both were long time Roehlig Wrestling campers, but Nicky was too small to really wrestle with Ivan until now. 

Ivan went on to become 3 time OHSAA State Placer, winning a State Championship in 2013 at 126 lbs. He then went to wrestle for NCAA D2 powerhouse program Notre Dame where he became an All-American his freshman year and won a National Championship at 125 lbs. his sophmore year. He was as nice a kid as he was/is skilled. Here's a picture of Ivan when he was in high school helping some of Tom's younger campers. 
 

Back to Nicky's journey. We found ourselves, in Nicky's 7th grade year, wrestling out of 3 practice rooms again. The reason for this was that the Jr. High School programs have an influx of new wrestlers who did not wrestle when they were in elementary school. The competition just isn't there for a kid whose wrestled since they were in first grade and was as good as Nicky and his many youth peers were. So we wrestled out of Brecksville Club, Brunswick with Mike Heil, and St. Peter Chanel. As noted before these were always our "go to" rooms.

I corner coached Nick for most of this years tournaments before States. Except for the McDowell Open in PA. and the Virginia Duals. Heil coached Nick at McDowell and one of the Brecksville Club guys coached Nick at the Virginia Duals. I cornered Nicky through a few hundred matches since he began wrestling and know him inside and out and so I was always comfortable doing this. It didn't hurt that Nicky wants to win bad and always put forth his very best effort. We did pretty good. The only matches he lost we're before the OAC District Tournament were to two PA. 8th grade wrestlers. He lost to Terry Victor 4-0 at the Green Bulldog Round Robin his first tournament of the year and then at the Battle At The Bay he lost a close one to a real stud, Gage Curry, 2-0. 

Here's the Victor match. This is why Jr. High can be a real challenge.  An 8th grader has a big advantage over the average 7th grader in terms of physical maturity. He was just a little behind in horse power.    

   

The only organization that has a Jr. High State Tournament is the OAC.  The public schools systems hold Conference tournaments, but as I noted earlier the competition simply isn't at the same level as the kids who will participate in the OAC District and State events.

The toughest OAC District at the time when Nicky was in 7th and 8th grade was the Brecksville District.  In order to qualify for the District Tournament, a wrestler must place 1st through 6th place. Wrestlers who place 7th and 8th are State Alternates. We felt confident that Nick would qualify...and possibly win.

Nick wrestled the tournament in the 108 lb. weight class.  If memory serves me correct he had to cut 4 lbs. No big deal. It was a 23 man bracket. He opened up by pinning Nathan Zurzdo. He followed that up by pinning his next opponent, Trevor Garner from Woodridge. His Quarter Finals match he dominated, Tech Falling Jake Little from Massillon Perry 19-2.

In the Semi-Finals Match he met up with Alex Mackall. We heard that Alex was favored to win States this year but had never seen him wrestle. Alex was in 8th grade and definitely had the physical maturity advantage. He was a short, muscular fireplug of a kid and he moved great. Todd Assad, who was sitting with me in Nick's corner told me "this kid's really good" before the match began. Alex, who was wrestling out of the North Akron Club, majored Nicky 9-0.  Obviously a super tough kid. Nice kid too. I had a chance to speak with him and his dad Bob after our boys wrestled. Good people. Told him hopefully we'd see them at the Finals at States. Always thinking optimistically I am. It's hard not to with a kid like Nicky.

Nicky bounced right back and wrestled to 3rd place. He won by decision 6-4 over Lake's Tyler Whitmeyer, and pinned Lake Catholic's Joe Boley. A very solid District performance.

On 3-10-2012 it was time for the Ohio OAC Jr. High State Tournament. It was a 48 man bracket. Nicky began the tournament by pinning Matt Shaney of Massillon Perry.






He then majored Brendan O'brien of Team Foxfire 11-0. He was wrestling very well. Here's that match.

In the 3rd Championship Round, one round before the Quarter Finals, Nick faced a Team Jordan wrestler. a boy named Mario Kastl. He wrestled tough but got off to a slow start and made a few mistakes, and those two things were the difference in the match. He lost by decision 8-6. Coach Heil said, correctly so in my opinion, that the mistakes that he made were rooted more in the mental aspect of the sport and that in jr. high and high school the mental aspect becomes a much more critical component of wrestling. Here's the Kastl match. Mario would make it to the Finals before losing to Alex Mackall 4-2.





I've always maintained, unless you're a wrestler in the lighter weight classes, the OAC Jr. High State Tournament is largely an 8th grade tournament. In the lightweight classes you'll see the occasional stud 6th grader place high and even win. You just don't see that in the middleweight classes. If you do you'd better follow that kid throughout high school because chances are he is going to be something very special!

Nick wrestled 8th graders throughout the tournament thus far and the next morning in the Consolation Rounds that picked up again. He faced Tyler Whitmyer from Lake and decisioned him 6-0.

  



Nick's next match was against Tyler Wiedaholt, a very solid and tough opponent. He dropped the match and lost by decision 4-0. And that was the end of States. We felt strongly that Nicky was going to be much more confident and competitive one short year from now when he was an eight grader. In hindsight, knowing who turned out to be who in high school, this was a very tough bracket with a lot of big names. Mackall, Wiedaholt, Hobbs, Lawson, Georgio Poullas, Ben Darmstadt, Koontz, Stower and more. Very competitive kids. Here's his match against Wiedaholt.


All in all a very productive learning year in which Nicky showed, once again, that he was heading in the right direction and was going to be a force to be reckoned with for years to come. The stars were aligning. We'll pick up Nick's journey in the next post as he moves to the top of the food chain...eighth grades has it's rewards. Until then, take care.