seventh grade, I was no longer in Catholic school but bussed to J. G. Whittier Junior High School, a recently integrated school in the same neighborhood as T. C. Williams High School, which had its racial tensions captured in the movie Remember the Titans. The movie told the story of how the school’s football team overcame its own racial bias and hate in their hearts. They began to appreciate one another and destroy their opponents, who often continued to spew hate as TC went on to win the state championship.
Despite that victory, tensions remained high, as they had since the DC riots of 1968. We were integrated but not together. Every morning after the buses arrived, white kids would gather on one side of the lobby and black kids on the other. Most mornings, I hid my 85-pound frame behind Charlie, a 280-pound wrestler who lived on my block and had been held back, which made him even bigger than the biggest kids. Charlie knew me as a “little” wrestler, and he let me stay behind him as fights broke out all around us. On a few occasions, the violence was bad enough to close down the school for the day and bus us home.
Despite my wrestling prowess, I avoided fighting anywhere but the mat for three reasons: I was still small, I didn’t want to give my dad a reason to put me back in Catholic school, and I had no desire to fight people who I did not hate. In fact, my best friend Floyd was the first black kid I became close to. We knew each other from football before junior high, and I talked him into doing wrestling. Despite our different backgrounds, Floyd became part of my family, and I became part of his, though his chained-up dog, Whitey, never accepted me. Every time Whitey growled at me, Floyd just laughed. Don’t mind her. She just hates white people.
After a local high school football game one night, racial tensions spilled over into the streets of our town. Floyd’s older brother was killed in a hit-and-run that the news attributed to racism. It was as senseless and tragic as the Munich Massacre unfolding that summer. It all left me confused, nervous, and unsettled.
A few days later, we learned of more death in the shadow of the Olympic tragedy. Rick Sanders had left Munich, silver medal around his neck and girlfriend on his arm, and started hitchhiking through Eastern Europe. His body had been found along the road, apparently run over by a truck. His bag contained his red USA Olympic team pants and jacket and six dollars. His Olympic silver medal was never recovered.
Reports of Sanders’ end affected my wrestling brotherhood deeply. The older wrestlers from my neighborhood told us younger ones incredible stories about him, how he was known for partying but could still wipe the mat with anyone in the wrestling room. One kid said he’d heard that when Sanders hadn’t shown at the Munich arena on match day, the coaches found him in a bar. Rick Sanders wasn’t hiding the hard partying side of his life from anyone. But by this time, I was.
If anything marks the beginning of what I call my double life of addiction to wrestling and drugs, it’s the summer I saw Dan Gable wrestle—the first time I tried marijuana. Not six months after I promised that cop I wouldn’t.
The summer before my freshman year of high school, I found myself sitting on the railroad ties near the Falls Church community center pool with a bunch of the wilder, cooler, older kids in town. My life revolved around that pool in the summers throughout high school, and that life had now spilled over into the woods and these tracks, where kids drank and smoked pot seemingly every day. I had some status as a wrestler and football player, but I wasn’t part of their crowd. They wanted me to join them and were passing a pipe down the line. The smell the officer had showed us was getting closer.
I had meant it when I told him I wouldn’t do it. I told myself I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t succumb to peer pressure.
Here… No thanks. Come on… Nah, I’m good. HERE…
This didn’t sound like a request anymore, but a do-it-and-you’re-in, don’t-and-you’re-out ultimatum. These weren’t my friends. These were the kids I desperately wanted to accept me—and they weren’t taking no for an answer.
They knew it was my first time. Embarrassment and fear of being called a loser overtook my conscience. I took a toke and got immediate praise, which I accepted. On the inside, I knew I had just made a mistake—that I had betrayed that police officer, my parents, and myself.
Not that I let those feelings stop me. I drank and smoked pot that entire summer with my new friends. We stole beer from the 7–11 or High’s. We partied though the night. Thus began my double life: one “me” riding around with kids in cars, drinking, smoking, and eventually doing harder drugs, the other “me” maintaining the facade of “All-American Boy”—the wrestler with the bright future.
My double life was really only for my family and teachers. I didn’t have to hide it from the wrestlers. Rick Sanders wasn’t an exception in the sport. Wrestlers are the ultimate athletes and party animals—a fact my sister Teri confirmed for me on New Year’s Eve my freshman year. She had a date with the greatest wrestler to ever come out of our area, who was on break from his college wrestling team in Indiana. They let me tag along with them to a house party. I was the youngest one there, and they took me under their wing and taught me how to do tequila shots. While they left me to go dance, I stayed in the kitchen doing shots until after the clock struck twelve. When we returned home, Teri’s date deposited me on the side of the house, where I remained until I puked. I slept in the side yard—and I still woke up and completed a three-hour 8:00 a.m. wrestling practice.
I figured Rick Sanders would’ve been proud, especially because I was playing with the big boys now on every level. Nothing was going to keep me out of that spotlight. I longed to be there. I worked my ass off to get there. I may have been smoking pot and drinking. I may have been awkward around girls. But all those Johns bowed before John the Wrestler. I felt more confident and more alive than ever when I was on the wrestling mat.
My freshman year, I won the varsity starting position at my weight in a wrestle-off against a kid from the neighborhood, whom I knew from my all-star boys’ club team that competed around the DC metro area. I won the girl too: captain of the freshman cheerleaders, whom I’d had a crush on since first grade. But things were not meant to end the way they started. In wrestling, the coach could allow someone to challenge for the starting position, and I ended up losing a challenge match after a controversial call. I lost the girl soon after.
Fair or not, I resolved never to let that happen again. Despite my status as the backup 112-pounder, my high school coach took me to the NCAA nationals, and I got to meet my hero Dan Gable in the practice room. Clinging to the confidence wrestling gave me, I didn’t just gawk from afar or ask to shake his hand—I walked right up to him, announced who I was, and asked him to “go takedowns with me.” He looked at me and said… Nah, that’s okay, kid.
Dejected, I sat against the wall and watched him work out. When it was over, he came up to me, grabbed me by the arm, and said, “Let’s go.” We playfully went at it for over twenty minutes, and he even let me ask questions about technique. I thanked him. Hungry for more, I went looking for another top-level wrestler to work out with. That summer I attended summer camp with Doug Blubaugh, an Olympic champion and college coach who taught me how “those who do, do.” His words still in my head, I became determined to do.
Sophomore year, I regained the starting position, and there was no taking my spot away again. I won the bronze medal at State and was now one of the leaders of the team. I moved up to a higher-tier cheerleader too—I was now dating the captain of the varsity squad.
Nothing could stop me. Except me.
BEING WATCHED
Until April of my sophomore year, my biggest anxiety was the future. Wrestling gave me confidence on the mat, but at night, especially before the season and after it ended, I
