AWARD WINNING BLOGGER? SURE THING

Award winning what?

Since this is the only time I’ve seen my name in a headline, it covers everything.

“Gillaspie Wins.”

What more could anyone want?

Instead of complaining for fifty-two years after the event reported, I fill in the missing parts.

I like to think of it as an American Fable with universal appeal.

What more could anyone want? Oh, I already said that.

A more astute reporter on the local scene might have included that the medal was gold and won with the most unlikely of comebacks in the history of comebacks.

It began when I was fifteen and ready to quit all of sports because I wasn’t feeling it.

No one really feels that winning spirit when your high school football team wins one game and your coaches tell you you’re quitters for not trying harder.

Not only was I on a quitters’ team, I got hurt and couldn’t play for the last half of the season after I started a varsity game as a sophomore with my older brother, an all-star.

To reawaken my competitive spirit I quit basketball and tried wrestling.

I was a force on the court, recording my biggest game of scoring two points with twenty rebounds as a freshman.

Forceful numbers, right? Award winning? No.

I don’t know if my shot was any good because I wouldn’t shoot. Since then my shot hasn’t improved.

 

My first season in the wrestling room included a coach with a national reputation and a returning senior who had placed second in a junior world tournament in Japan.

It rubbed off on me and everyone else in 1971.

At the end of the year I placed sixth in the state Greco-Roman tournament at 180 lbs for a nice pink ribbon.

Pink? Yes, pink.

I finished the tournament by getting accidentally pinned after accidentally throwing myself on my back.

It seemed a fitting end. The guy who beat me said he was going to college next year.

I figured it was a wrestling college; he said it was Barnum & Bailey Clown College.

From Circopedia:

 

Clown College was free, but applicants had to submit an extensive application form that was designed to give the directors a clear understanding of the applicant’s psychology, interests, and previous experience.

 

I lost to a clown.

 

Award Winning Two Years Later:

The next year I cut weight to 165 lbs and got crushed.

I felt like skin and bones and got thrashed around by guys I knew I could beat if I hadn’t starved down.

Senior year I showed up for the state Greco championships at 190 lbs and accidentally threw myself on my back in the first match.

Call me accident prone.

A month or so earlier the same thing happened on Senior Night against Springfield where you get called out in front of the hometown fans with your parents, pin a corsage on Momma, then go out and rip an opponent a new one.

I pinned the flowers on Ma, stabbed her in the boob, then finished a winning effort by throwing myself on my back at the end and getting pinned.

The guy in my first Greco match, a Grants Pass guy, was joining the Marines after high school and looked every bit of it.

He was not a clown, which took the loser edge off. Getting beat by a future Marine sounded badass.

 

The Comeback Trail Started

After the first match of the 1973 AAU Oregon Greco-Roman State Championship Tournament I vowed to never again accidentally throw myself on my back so my opponents could accidentally pin me.

Quite a vow, I know, and it was late in coming.

In life, if we choose to reflect on the long haul of baby boomer proportions, we either adapt of perish.

When I say perish, I don’t say perish as in die, but there’s a little death to it, like the death of a dream.

My dream was to replace my pink ribbon from 1971 to something better and I was off to a bad start in my last chance.

With only one restriction, namely not pinning myself with reckless ill-advised moves, I went to town on the rest of the bracket with arm throws, head and arm throws, and anything that didn’t involve a flat-back throw to a self-pin.

The next guy I faced had placed second in high school state a month earlier to an eventual college national champ and Olympic team member who had moved up to heavyweight.

I watched their championship match in Corvallis after I was eliminated by losing my first two.

It looked like clash of the titans in a closely scored contest.

My next guy was the anticipated champ at 190 lbs with his resume, and he looked the part, bigger and stronger and meaner than the first guy.

But I was on a mission with nothing to lose.

 

Thrill Of Victory, Agony Of Defeat

My guy, first to the right of #1, got some last minute coaching before the match:

 

“This guy is a bear-hugger so watch out.”

 

My secret was safe. Bear-hugger? Not any more.

He came at me fast and I put him on his back with the snappiest head and arm throw of my life.

With his feet flying up in the air over my bent hip he landed with a hard thump and proceeded to arch his way off the mat like a fish on a dock.

To my surprise he came at me the same way on the restart and got the same throw to his back, except this time I locked him up and bulldogged him in a circle until the flopping grew weak, then weaker, then stopped.

He had to know he was better than me and his expression of disdain on the podium shows it.

Me? I’m in my Olympic moment with the Star Spangled Banner playing in my mind.

The man who hung my medal, Greg Stobel, was the older brother of a kid I beat, so that was a sweet moment.

During the summer of 1973 I placed third in the nation in the Junior Greco-Roman Championship at University of Iowa to prove the state championship wasn’t a fluke.

Proved to whom? Mostly to me.

Was I, or was I not, an award winning athlete?

 

Award Winning Life Lessons Learned?

Pass the joy of sports to the next generation.

Let them know there’s life after losing, and winning doesn’t fix everything.

Teach the kids about making an effort, about looking forward to the next season, and what they want to improve.

During every season of the years I coached rec-league soccer, basketball, indoor soccer, baseball, football, and whatever my kids were onto next, I talked about the lessons of playing sports; I talked about wrestling.

One of the kids in the picture got the message, but all of them would have benefited from a season on the mats.

It was a good time with great kids and a perfect co-head coach. (Hey John)

Will any of them repeat the hopes and dreams I put into each season?

That’s why the future is such a fascinating mystery.

This week I went to my grandbaby’s first soccer practice of the year with their parents.

Hopes and dreams live on.

Call it award winning at the highest level, way up there.