There were few wrestling fans (or wrestlers) in my circle of friends in Huron, S.D. We all seemed to follow basketball and football, and, of course, baseball. There was very little discussion about sports like wrestling and hockey.
That all changed for me when I started covering sports for a living, back in the late 1960s. I can very clearly point to the time when I started to love wrestling: covering Vern Tate's Huron College Scalper team, led by stars like Bill Ehlers, Gary Keck, Randy Donovan and my fraternity pledge brother, Jerry Pickinpaugh. Covering HC's wrestling duals was a special event, especially in the Huron College gymnasium, aptly named "The Pit." The wrestlers on this team had to love performing at home, in an old-school gym that still had the stage and overhanging balcony. The better for HC fans, mainly students, to stick their legs through the railings, virtually hanging over the wrestling mat. Their boosting was so impressive that wrestlers like Pickinpaugh were known to smash their head into the wooden doors in the gym as they "psyched up" for a match. That was "before" they took the mat.
The scene with the fans igniting a fire under the wrestlers was literally enough to make the hairs stand up on your neck. I can vividly recall going my first matches. No expert at wrestling to be sure, I was nevertheless hooked by the atmosphere. Though I didn't know a takedown from an escape, I loved being in a place that was so ... competitive and exhilarating. What more could you ask on a Friday or Saturday night? Fans were screaming "NEXT!" as each successive Southern Pointer or Dakota Wesleyan Tiger took the mat.
HC was virtually unbeatable at home, and over the years, Tate's crew rolled up impressive NAIA statistics.
After covering this spectacle, it was quite a bit less exciting to watch high school matches in the cavernous Huron Arena. But I loved it just the same, and over the next several years, I was able to cover high school championships and duals at the Arena.
I don't remember, but looking back, I must have been initially apprehensive about covering something like wrestling, which I knew nothing about. But it didn't take long for me to not only love it, but to heap praise and appreciation on young men to go out on the mat. It can't be an easy sport to master. Wrestlers often describe their early years as "looking at the lights," a way of telling people they found their way to their backs. It's a sports where very few excel before failing. In that failing, if you want to call it that, they learn. On example of that in my coverage years was Scott Dubbelde, a great wrestler who developed into a state placewinner in his last two years. In the years leading up to that, Scott learned humility as well as confidence and rose to the top, winning a state championship, not an easy thing to do in any state, let alone Minnesota, one of the best wrestling states in the country.
The more I watched wrestling, the more I admired these young men who often cut weight and practiced in rubber suits, all the while knowing they probably weren't going to be state champs. It certainly had be difficult for family, i.e. moms, watching their son take a crossface or seeing him get caught in a double arm bar. But that's how they learned, and how good coaches led them to make proper decisions on the mat. I am still, after all these years, no expert at wrestling. But I enjoy watching my beloved Minnesota Golden Gophers and each year at this time, try to envision them winning the NCAA team title to go with the national dual title they've won for two straight years. Maybe this will be the year.
