A Quest to Connect
Years ago I decided to find and talk with old rivals - the ones who'd handed me my most painful losses.
Throwback Vault: This (edited) article was first published in 2019 while I was writing for Trackwrestling.
Most wrestling dreams aren’t destroyed by icons like John Smith, Cael Sanderson and Jordan Burroughs.
They’re shattered by guys who go on to become teachers and coaches, guys who work blue-collar jobs, and others who enter the white-collar world.
I wondered if I’m the only one who thinks about those responsible for our harshest sports lessons. I wondered if others guess at what happened to so-and-so, the guy who beat them in the state finals their senior year. Or struck them out with the game on the line. Or swished a three with time expiring to sink high school hoop dreams by a point.
In wrestling, it’s necessarily and by nature more personal. Mano a Mano contests do that
Certain matches impact our lives; the opponents in those matches do, too. Since my brain travels in peculiar places, I’ve wondered: Would it be cool or kooky to contact people I know nothing about, except that they beat me decades ago in critical matches?
How would they react? I wasn’t sure.
But, I’m sure of this:
A certain tie binds those who have toed the line in the center of a mat, shaken hands and wrestled. At the time, we don't know this, of course. At the time, we just want to pound the guy in front of us.
Somewhere near the intersection of Reverence and Respect, however, something real and enduring and good is created between two people who’ve wrestled each other.
Recently, I reconnected with four wrestlers who beat me in pivotal matches during my wrestling life.
What prompted the story idea? I don’t know. I suppose I was curious to find out how wrestling had impacted their lives. I guess I hoped I’d find each doing well. Mostly, I wanted to see which direction their lives had traveled since the last time we shook hands before walking off the mat - them exultant, me crushed.
"Wrestling put me where I am today," said Andy Hensley, who retired after 17 seasons as the head coach at Tri-Center High School in Neola, Iowa, where he still teaches. “It helped me get a job, a teaching and coaching job. I was the head coach at my school for 17 years. I'm proud of that."
Hensley was a three-time NAIA All-American and national finalist for Dana College in Nebraska. We wrestled in the blood-round at the NAIA National Championships when I was a junior. Whoever wins is an All-American, guaranteed a top 8 finish on the podium. Whoever loses, his season is over, returning home with no hardware.
More than it probably should have, hardware mattered to me.
I threw Hensley to his back early in our match. No matter how hard I pressed, he fought. I couldn’t clamp down the half inch to secure the pin. I’ve seen that half-inch space in my dreams. The period ended.
Up by four in the final period, I should never have allowed any upper-body engagement or tie. I did. Hensley returned the favor and launched me to my back. I remember thinking, in a flash, “This isn’t good.”
Thinking in a match isn’t good, either. I heard the ref slap the mat. Hensley had pinned me.
Wrestling is hard. The weight-cutting and training can’t be understood by those unfamiliar, and part of the hard is that losses sting like nothing else. Excuses aren’t available. Nobody else dropped the game-winning pass. No teammate gave up the game-winning, bases clearing double. Nobody else missed a crucial free throw with two ticks remaining on the clock. When you lose, it’s because of you.
I asked Hensley if the stark, uncompromising nature of our sport helped him get through any hardships he’d experienced since his competitive days.
"I'd have to say yes," he said. "I lost my mom in 2008 to cancer. That was hard. Then in 2010, I lost my dad to the same thing.
“But I don't think it's just wrestling. Sports in general can teach us valuable lessons."
Kelly Stevens kept me off the podium the following year. He was an All-American at the University of Findlay in Ohio. He ended my wrestling career with a 5-0 decision.
I found his email address and sent him a message, reminding him of who I was and what I was doing.
"Hello, Nick," Stevens replied. "I know who you are and remember battling you. I hope things are going well for you. I would be honored to participate."
His response didn't fit the persona of the no-nonsense tough guy who thwarted every single-leg attack I attempted in our final match. We connected the next day.
"It's bigger than wins and losses," said Stevens, now a guidance counselor and wrestling coach at Butler High School in Vandalia, Ohio. "In my job, or in life in general, when things get tough, you gotta find a way to get it done."
Meaning?
"Hard things," he said. "Stress, workload, family, friends or sometimes even students passing away. Everybody has to deal with tough things, and I think wrestling helps you learn (to create) that find-a-way-to-get-it-done mentality. The sport of wrestling means a lot to me because it's taught me how to endure, and life requires us to endure quite a bit."
Scott Shipman beat me by a couple takedowns the first time we wrestled. He nearly teched me a couple years later when we wrestled in the finals of the Ohio Northern University Open.
Shipman was a four-time All-American and Division II NCAA national champion at West Liberty University in West Virginia. He currently lives in Nashville. He’s a business development senior vice president for an information technology firm.
After winning his national title his junior year, he defaulted to sixth-place after injuring his knee in the quarterfinals his senior year.
"It was devastating, but that injury propelled me to keep wrestling," he said. "If I'd have gotten that second title, I probably would have been finished (competing)."
Instead, he continued chasing freestyle dreams after college, training with the likes of Olympians Zeke Jones, Cary Kolat and Mark Coleman.
How good was Shipman? He lost in overtime to Ohio State two-time NCAA finalist and national champion, Mitch Clark, during Clark's junior year.
"Wrestling has impacted every phase of my life," Shipman said. "I still view almost all situations through the lens of a former competitor and coach."
One moment from high school remains vividly burned in my memory, 30 years later. I was in the Fairfield High School locker room, tears falling as freely as water from the shower head.
For the second straight year I’d entered the sectional tournament as the No. 1 seed and was upset. This time, against a wrestler I’d beaten handily earlier in the season. Though I was able to wrestle back and move on to the following week’s District tournament, I finished my career with zero sectional titles.
Dave McDaniel was responsible for my anguish that day. I tracked down his number and left a message. He called back.
“Nick Corey!” he shouted. “How in the hell are you, and what can I do for you, Sweetheart?"
The guy who crushed my soul decades earlier, a guy who seemed quiet and reserved from afar, sounded boisterous and friendly. We agreed to meet the following morning for breakfast.
The last time I’d seen him, Dave was a lean, high school 145-pounder that went on to place fourth in Ohio’s large-school division at the state tournament.
He pulled up in a black Chevy Silverado looking like he just walked off the set of Duck Dynasty. He had auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail, a full beard streaked with silver and a Harley Davidson T-shirt.
We shook hands and commenced to catching up on the last 30 years. Dave’s life had taken some unexpected twists and turns. He told me about some of the demons he’d overcome. Dave was an open book.
"I'd say there was definitely depression," he said. "I started self-medicating — alcohol, pot, mushrooms."
He got clean, eventually discovering the open road suited him best. McDaniel drives a truck for Martin-Brower, a primary provider of “just about everything” to McDonald’s restaurants.
My 18-year-old self never would’ve pictured any of this. We sat and talked, three decades after a match so acutely painful for me, it’s never left my mind.
“You got a few minutes to kill?” Dave asked after we finished eating.
He told me about another wrestler we grew up competing with, Jim Lentz, who owned a nearby shooting range, Premier Shooting and Training Center.
“Great, nice place,” he said. “They’ve got everything. Wanna go shoot?”
And so we did, two guys connected by battle and joy and heartache and a handshake at the beginning and a handshake at the end.
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