Ultimate Sports by Donald R. Gallo Page B

Claus.
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    I’ve got to hand it to Uncle Joe: He did his homework. He started Monday’s practice by explaining the double-leg takedown from the neutral position. All week he kept with it—breakdowns, tie-ups, pinning combinations, escapes, reversals. He was coaching real wrestling, and he was doing okay too.
    The problem was that in Washington there are thirteen weight classifications. So with ten wrestlers we couldn’t even field a full team. At every meet we’d have to forfeit three matches. Each forfeit would hand our opponents six points. We’d start out down eighteen points. That’s a steep hole for any team to climb out of. And we weren’t just any team. We were a lousy team.
    I’d never actually wrestled in a meet. Neither had Dinky or J.P. We were the guys the good wrestlers pinned in practice. But we were all-league compared to our teammates. None of them had ever wrestled anywhere, except maybe with their moms when they were little. All the experienced wrestlers had quit.
    Uncle Joe wasn’t worried. The day of our first meet, he told us to think big. “Every single one of you is capable of winning!” We let out a throaty roar and charged into the wrestling room. Two hours later we silently slunk out. We hadn’t won a match, let alone the meet. Monroe had clobbered us 69-0.
    “Don’t get discouraged!” Uncle Joe boomed the next day at practice. “We’ll get better. You wait and see!”
    Before the Snohomish meet Uncle Joe told us our goal was to win three-fourths of our matches. We lost 68-0.Our goal for the Tolt meet was to win half of our matches. Tolt took us 69-0. Next our goal was to win two matches. 70-0. Then it was for someone, somehow, to manage a draw. 72-0. After that the losses piled up like homework: 70-0, 73-0, 71-0, 68-0. On and on and on. Uncle Joe never gave up, but for the rest of us the only goal left was to get through the season.
    And we were almost through it, too, when the article appeared in the
Sultan News
. The headline was “A Team for the Ages.” The story was supposed to be funny. The writer had discovered that no wrestling team had ever gone an entire season without scoring at least one point. With one match left in the season—and that match against the unbeaten Seattle High Roughriders—we were about to make history.
My vote goes to Joe Milligan for Coach of the Year
, the writer ended.
Think what this man has accomplished in one year!
    My father chortled as he read the article.
    “It’s not funny, Dad,” I snapped.
    “Come on, Joey,” he replied. “Don’t take yourself so seriously. And when I think how your uncle Joe stood right here in this room and said that with him as coach, you guys might take the state.” He put the paper down and laughed so hard tears came to his eyes and he had to blow his nose.
    At practice the next day Uncle Joe, his face ashen, stood before us. There was no sparkle in his eyes. “It’s my fault,” he said, his voice dead. “I’ve made you the laughingstocks of the town. I thought I could help, but…” He stopped and bowed his head.
    It was Dinky who spoke up. “Don’t blame yourself, Coach. It’s not your fault we stink.”
    Immediately Uncle Joe’s spine straightened and colorreturned to his cheeks. “Don’t ever put yourselves down,” he snapped. “And don’t ever quit.” I could feel his spirit revive. “I’m not going to quit.” He made his right hand into a fist. “I’ll come up with something. We’ll show everyone. Trust Uncle Joe.”
    He hardly spoke that afternoon. As we practiced, we could see him thinking. His forehead was furrowed; he bit his thumbnail; his eyes stared off into space. Then, just before practice ended, he snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it!” he boomed out.
    “What?” we called out in one voice. “What? What? What?”
    Uncle Joe smiled mysteriously. “You’ll see tomorrow,” he answered. “I want to surprise you.”
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