2/16/06

On the Road

Seventeen wrestlers, three coaches, one trainer, one girlfriend, one bus, 285 miles and one meet

by Garret Felder
February 16, 2006

While many student-athletes get days off from class and extensions for assignments, some of their classmates find themselves asking, “How hard can it be to be a college athlete?” Without calculating practice time, regular students think athletes have it made with scholarships, traveling for events and special privileges in the classroom ......

The bus waited outside the Taylor Center for the wrestling team as I hurried my way up the hill, forgetting to grab something to eat before I left. This would end up hurting me in the long run. As I approached the bus, head coach Jim Makovsky greeted me gratefully.

“Glad you could make it,” Makovsky said. “Throw your stuff in the bottom of the bus and hop in.”

I found a seat in the second row while the team headed toward the back of the bus, just like it was grade school again. The loading process was mostly quiet until athletic trainer Paul Osterman broke the silence with some food— a very gutsy move around a team of hungry wrestlers.

“Look at this guy,” junior Travis Krinkie called out, pointing to Osterman. “He's got three sandwiches and I'm here starving to death.”

Senior John Koons warned me beforehand that the ride to the event wouldn’t be good, but I didn't expect it to be that bad. As the bus started to pull away, assistant coach Mike Engelmann laughed at a jimmy-rigged tape job by Makovsky designed to keep the coaches’ dress shirts from sliding into Bill, the bus driver.

“No laughing on the trip there,” Makovsky said, half-joking with a stern face. The comment alone was enough to imply the seriousness of the upcoming dual meet.

The bus left the MSU campus by 10:30 a.m., and the bus would be silent for the next two hours with hungry, focused athletes sitting in the rear of the bus, fixated on nothing but their UNO opponents.

After passing the Blue Bunny Ice Cream factory in Le Mars, Iowa, Makovsky awoke with his iPod on and suggested a game for the coaches sitting at the front of the bus — the “something you’ll never see” game, which is a game that consists of placing a person in a location they would never be and, hopefully, coercing a laugh from the guys. After Makovsky rattled off a couple, I threw out “Fabio at a Rogaine convention,” eliciting a few chuckles.

Before arriving at the campus, Makovsky’s anxiety was obvious as the coach sang and tapped his leg constantly while listening to his iPod. As the bus pulled into Omaha, assistant coach Brandon Reichel pulled my attention away from Makovsky by popping his first question.

“So, have you been on a trip with the hockey team?” Reichel asked. I replied quickly by stating I don’t cover hockey and the assistant coach gave me a fist pound, as if to say, yes, we’ve one-upped the hockey team for once.

While the wrestling team walked into the Sapp Fieldhouse after a five-hour drive, they were soon surrounded by the success of the UNO wrestling program as all of the school’s wrestling trophies were lined up across three party tables erected next to the bleachers. Talk about trying to use intimidation as an asset.

But as the group moved further into the fieldhouse, the Mavericks realized they were going to be one-half of the performers in a wrestling circus that night.

With five mobile cameras for a local broadcast, an inflatable entrance tunnel, advertisements everywhere and a wrestling mat enclosed by drop-down dividers, the fieldhouse looked like it was set up for a Royal Rumble with the Mavericks facing off against the Legion of Doom and all of Degeneration X in a Friday Night Pay-Per-View event.

After soaking the entire venue into my eyes and ears, including the banner that boasted the UNO wrestling program being a top-four program almost every year since 1981, I sat down in the bleachers next to senior Math Bitz’s girlfriend, Courtney Jorsz, and introduced myself. Jorsz is Bitz’s high school sweetheart of five years and also hitched a ride on the bus for the meet. This season alone she has made it to every event of his senior year except for the tournaments in Reno, Nev., and Shippensburg, Pa.

Shortly after introductions and some small talk, Jorsz got a phone call from Bitz’s mother, Janice, inviting us to dinner with senior Tim Kraemer’s family (Tom, Diane and brother Brian).

Following an enjoyable dinner (a salad because I felt guilty about eating as the wrestlers couldn’t while running sprints to make weight) loaded with conversations about NDSU coach Bucky Maughan, stories about Math and Tim, and complaints about the lack of snow for snowmobiling. The Maverick fans and I got back to campus to witness a wrestling circus under the big aluminum roof.

With a hostile crowd and an unforgiving referee, the light of defeating a national champion was very dim for the Mavericks. Nothing seemed to go right as the Mavericks lost six straight matches and the fans — who thought they knew everything about wrestling, apparently — constantly ripped on the MSU athletes. Three matches were decided in the last couple seconds of the third period, including J.D. Naig’s reversal into a near fall on Krinkie with 15 seconds left and Krinkie leading 6-4 UNO coach Mike Denney even flashed a smile to the Mavericks as if to say he knew had gotten away with an act close to robbery.

After sitting through an intense meet that caused the majority of spectators to shake from the adrenaline rush, the wrestling team loaded up the bus at 9:30 p.m., and headed for Sioux Falls, S.D., to cut off half the distance for its Saturday meet against Southwest State in Marshall, Minn.

A good two-and-a-half hours went by before the first laugh was heard during the bus ride to the Fairfield Inn hotel in Sioux Falls. Until then, only the sounds of the coaches talking about the meet and the shuffling of playing cards were heard. The silence seemed even worse than the trip there with the majority of the bus sleeping. Hearing so little noise caused me to doze off somewhere outside Sioux City, Iowa.

As the bus arrived at the hotel around 1 a.m., and the squad unloaded its gear, Makovsky got the keys to the team’s rooms and started separating the athletes three or four to a room. I was told to bunk up with the starting heavyweight (whom I had talked to a few times before) and the athletic trainer I had just met that day.

Once we made it to our room, Kraemer, Osterman and I all sat down to watch a showing of SportsCenter and enjoy an orange and a Gatorade. Not exactly the most appetizing meal at 1 a.m., especially after not eating since the early evening. By 2 a.m., we turned out the light to catch some rest before the 10 a.m. wakeup call and another full day of traveling and training for Saturday’s meet.

Once we got home after a long Saturday and I thanked the team for letting me tag-along, I realized how lucky I was. I was able to eyewitness the trials and tribulations of not just college athletes, but college wrestlers are some of the most hard-working, dedicated and craziest guys I’ve ever met.

After this trip, I’ve realized that, along with the scholarships, accolades, so-called privileges and of course, the jersey chasers, there comes a price. To be a college athlete it takes hard work and dedication. But to be a college wrestler, that takes guts.