BULLDOG STRONG, PASS IT ALONG

Bulldog strong is what happens in North Bend, Oregon. It probably happens everywhere else, but Bulldog strong lasts a lifetime.

So far.

The best way to tell if you’ve got some Bulldog in you?

Do hard things, then reflect on where the credit goes after you get over yourself.

For example:

Have you ever tried to run up a sand dune? Me neither, but I’ve walked up a few, and it came in handy when I climbed Mt. Marathon in Seward, Alaska.

Two steps up, slide one step back. If not for the sand dune training it would have been miserable.

Luckily I had a Bulldog strong leader up front.

Doing hard things in North Bend might have been the same in Coos Bay, or Florence, or any coast town between there and Brookings, but none of them were Bulldogs.

In the long run it helps having a mascot animal known for chomping down and hanging on.

That’s what I did when I strapped on helmets over the brown and gold, I hung on.

It doesn’t sound like much, but as a 172 pound sophomore I had one goal in football: I wanted to start a game with my older brother. He was a 220 pound bruiser destined for the Shine Game and a four year college scholarship.

He could play.

I did the work, learned my position, left tackle on the line, and hit my goal four game into the season. My mom and dad got to see two of their sons on the field at the same time. That had to feel good. My dad was the president of the Quarterback Club at the time, with two lineman sons.

Go figure.

Bulldog Strong Arrived The Week Of Practice

I dinged my shoulder the week before my first start. Couldn’t lift my arm over my head.

I hid the injury until game day, then asked the coaches to tape me up. Five rolls later I looked like half a mummy. The additional feature was poking a hole through my jersey so I could tie a rope to my wrist and connecting it to my shoulder pads. That kept my arm from getting wrenched more.

My parents took me to the doctor after that and my season was over. Bulldog strong got me through the game, then propelled me to the next stage.

Injured players are supposed to stick with the team, but I wandered over to the wrestling room instead and found a home in that stinking hell hole.

I’d never wrestled, but felt like I needed something to stop feeling sorry for myself about getting hurt.

Three years later I joined a Bulldog tradition of Greco-Roman champions. Experienced coaches say late starting wrestlers are too far behind to catch up, but John Wisti started as a junior and won a state championship in high school style.

Knowing it could happen was enough.

The benefit of having Robin Richards in the room helped. He was coming off a junior year that included titles in freestyle, greco, high school, a national title that came with what I call an MVW award, Most Valuable Wrestler. If that wasn’t enough, he made the Jr. World Greco Team and won a silver medal after getting cheated out of the gold.

He was super Bulldog strong, and a good example of how to deal with adversity.

I was cheated out of a national title when I wrestled in the finals for a junior championship in Iowa by a ref who didn’t know how to call a Greco touch pin. I threw my guy on his back three times for a pin that wasn’t called.

Am I still whining? Maybe a little.

Bulldog strong helps with disappointment

A weak year of college wrestling was the springboard I used to hit the big time. I joined the Army, got an appointment to tryout for the All-Army Wrestling Team, and got smoked.

Those guys were grown men fighting for a place, some to keep a place, others coming in from West Point after graduating. Serious stuff for a nineteen year old. It reminded me of a regional Junior World tournament as a sophomore where I got smashed by Wes Hines and John Poppe, both seniors with mad skills.

Sweet memories, sort of, getting beat by good guys, but I didn’t get pinned in the Army so I’ve got that going for me.

I was in over my head both times, but in Bulldog style, I chomped down and hung on.

And adapted.

It takes strong stuff to adapt and move on after painful disappointments. But that’s the game, and it takes proper preparation to prevent piss poor performances later.

Instead of wrestling, I took up running. My last long run was Hood to Coast at age 49, after a load of 10K and 15k races, and one 3:32 marathon on a flat track in Seaside. Riding my bike from Eugene to Portland is in there somewhere.

Going long distances running and riding a bike take a certain amount of gumption. You’ve read about people who dream of running a marathon. In their sixties. It was hard enough at 29.

Share Some Of That Bulldog Business

Too many of us grow up and strive to put the past in its place. High school is the past, but where’s its place?

To my thinking, not bringing the lessons with you because they weren’t very impactful just means they went to the wrong high school.

As a fifteen year old sophomore in 1971 I saw the seniors as more than special. The guys were on top of their game, and the girls looked like a Miss America contest everyday.

Very strong.

In the ensuing years I’ve seen Bulldogs every place I’ve been, from Ashland to Philadelphia to Eugene to New York to Portland, then Tigard, with a few stops in between. Hey Anne.

My resilience is related to where I grew up, simple as that. I’m not saying people with insurmountable problems grew up in a bad place, but they don’t have the Bulldog benefit.

When asked about my writing career, as in, “David, why do you even bother?” I give a Bulldog answer.

I write because it’s the hardest thing I’ve done, and I’ve survived the cancer cure in my neck after seven weeks of radiation and three loads of chemo in between. Hey Dr. Yee. And I’ve written a memoir that needs representation.

Bulldog wrestling played a big part of cancer due to cutting weight, except it was the opposite.

I’ve never weighed 300 lbs, but I hit 280 and stopped checking. It’s like my bench press where I hit 280 twice and failed my entrance exam to Club 300 time after time.

Cancer advice was aimed at bulking up, adding weight for the marathon of treatment. Eat more? Enough said. It was more than enough the morning I went out for the best omelette in town when the after effects struck. Either someone in the kitchen poisoned my food, which was unlikely because those at the table with the same plate weren’t flinching, or it was chemo related.

The Weight

I’ve always made weight when it counted. With cancer, making weight was the higher number, not the lower.

Drop too much and I was out of the program, which means get your effects in order and wait it out, because death is coming.

My conflict was a wish to dip under two hundred pounds at some point in my adult life, and I was close. When the scale read 199.5 I switched gears. After the threat of a nose feeding tube because swallowing was too painful and oxy was too addictive, I started nibbling on marijuana-infused brownies and tea to go along with those chalky protein drinks.

And pulled through with wife support. She counts as Bulldog strong; her mom even looked a little bulldoggy.

If your day is hard, if your nights are endless, and if the weight of responsibility is crushing you, remember your high school mascot. A bulldog is perfect for the role. We have an advantage over Axemen, Highlanders, Millers, Irish, Lions, Colts, Ducks, and Beavers.

I asked my dad why he chose North Bend over Coos Bay when we moved there in 1960. The old man was a Marine. The Marine mascot is a bulldog.

It wasn’t a real choice. He brought Bulldog Strong with him.