High School Wrestling

A Montgomery County Circuit Court judge denied yesterday the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association's move to block a lawsuit seeking another upper-weight class for public high school wrestling.Attorney Robin Ficker, who sued in September, said Judge James Chapin also scheduled four days beginning Jan. 10 to hear arguments, after which he will rule on whether a 215-pound weight class should be created. The state's heaviest classifications are 189 pounds and unlimited (a maximum of 275 pounds)

When it comes to wrestling experience, Francis Scott Key seniors Matt Yinger and Jason Wiles are coming from opposite ends of the spectrum.Yinger, a four-year varsity veteran, has been wrestling for 13 years, going back to his "mat rat" days, and later as a junior-league standout. Wiles, on the other hand, has been wrestling only since his freshman year in high school, and this is his first varsity season.Each had a pin in the Eagles' most recent meet, a 36-32 loss at South Carroll last Wednesday.

Carroll County will once again provide high school wrestling enthusiasts with plenty of quality mat time this year.There's no argument it's one of the state's finest wrestling counties.Each of the five schools' programs appears to be in a different mode heading into the upcoming season.Stability is one of the ultimate goals of a successful program, and Francis Scott Key has been setting the standard the past couple of seasons under 17-year coach Bill Hyson. That was particularly evident last season when the Eagles stayed undefeated in dual-meet competition until losing a 35-26 decision to Hammond in the Class 2A-1A state dual-meet final.

A YOUNG MAN I know just finished the first year of his high school wrestling career. He went 0-for-4, was pinned twice and never scored a point on an opponent. It was the greatest success of his 14-year-old life.He had come home one night in early fall and at the dinner table announced to his family, "I'm going out for wrestling. I already signed up."The fact that he had already made his decision and acted on it surprised no one. Evidently, he'd been considering it for a while, pondering it silently, weighing his options solitarily, as was his style.

No one around Francis Scott Key High was surprised last July when the school's star three-sport athlete, Dale Bloom, enlisted in the Marines under a delayed-entry program.The Key senior will report to Paris Island June 28 for 11 1/2 weeks of Marine boot camp.Bloom loves action, fears nothing, lives for a challenge and always chooses the toughest road in anything.In sports, he thrives on the dirty work and the less glamorous positions.From day one in Little League baseball, Bloom was a catcher, and he still catches for the Eagles' baseball team.

Westminster wrestling coach Solomon Carr still remembers returning home after competing in his first official wrestling tournament.He was in the second grade at the time and ended up going against a cousin who was in the fourth grade.He said he got "crushed," and when he got home, all of his brothers and sisters made him do extra chores for losing."I wanted to get out of wrestling then and there. They gave me no slack at all," Carr said.He did, but only until the fifth grade. When you're a Carr brother in Erie, Pa., it's almost a given you are going to wrestle and wrestle well.

Westminster wrestling coach Solomon Carr still remembers returning home after competing in his first official wrestling tournament.He was in the second grade at the time and ended up going against a cousin who was in the fourth grade.He said he got "crushed," and when he got home, all of his brothers and sisters made him do extra chores for losing."I wanted to get out of wrestling then and there. They gave me no slack at all," Carr said.He did, but only until the fifth grade. When you're a Carr brother in Erie, Pa., it's almost a given you are going to wrestle and wrestle well.

To coach Ron McMillan, a healthy Atholton team that shows steady progress on the wrestling mat translates into a .500 team.That's 50 percent better than last season, when the Raiders, after forfeiting four or five weight classes per match, finished 0-13.This year, McMillan, a third-year coach, has more room for optimism.Despite an inexperienced roster, every weight class will be filled. In addition, McMillan laid a solid foundation for the future, luring at least 10 junior varsity football players to wrestle, mostly at the same level.

Howard's wrestling team hopes to contend for the county title with a mix of veterans in the middle weights and rookies in the lighter weights.Coach Fred Bullock, who begins his third season, is counting on the experience of seniors Mark Grinspoon, Ed Weeks, Jason Shefrin and John Wiland and junior Seth Eldridge to carry the Lions.Howard had one of its best turnouts in recent years with 32 candidates."This is the best turnout numbers-wise and quality-wise in the 12 years I've been athletic director," said Vince Parnell, who also serves as the Lions' assistant wrestling coach.

Ron Muir has an angry past.He blames his "short fuse" for the premature end to an otherwise solid high school wrestling career, his failure to graduate from Glen Burnie and the deterioration of his relationship with his parents.His best grades came during a freshman year at Marley Junior Highin which he was a B student and a county wrestling champion. Over the next three years, however, social workers and counselors were his constant companions.Once, during his junior year, he was arrested for having a fight with his father.

I "ran across" Lloyd Keaser on Sunday, but not, thank God, in the way Irv Johnson "ran across" Keaser 40 years ago. The school year 1967-1968 found me having some way bungled my way onto City College's wrestling team. I didn't make the team because of talent. I made it because, obviously, City head wrestling coach Clark Hudak lowered his standards considerably. I was 135 pounds of distinctly non-athletic skin and bones, which allowed me to compete in the 127- and 133-pound weight classes.

COLLEGE PARK -- If you don't follow high school wrestling in Maryland, you might be surprised to learn that the most interesting story line at yesterday's state tournament didn't involve a defending champion or a three-team race for the overall title. Instead, it involved a wrestler dressed in pink socks, lime-green headgear and sporting a ponytail who finished second in the final of the Class 4A-3A 103-pound weight class. More wrestling Old Mill captures its eighth state tournament title; Asper becomes Hereford's first three-time state champ.

The Class 4A-3A division of last weekend's Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association state high school wrestling tournament had a distinct Anne Arundel County feel to it. Arundel High finished fourth in team points, with Chesapeake seventh, Old Mill ninth and South River 11th. In addition, two Anne Arundel County wrestlers won state championships, and four others were runners-up. That's not unusual for the state tournament, in which Anne Arundel schools have long fared well.

THE NUMBERS, the cold, hard numbers, suggest that this hasn't been an especially good season for the Patapsco wrestling team. But numbers, cold, hard numbers, seldom tell the entire story. All year long, coach Bob Gorsuch and his team have been caught in a numbers game, where the numbers of team members have been small, so small that the competitive part of most of their matches has been over before spectators can get their seats warm. But Gorsuch and his team are looking past the numbers toward the future, when the Patriots will be back on track.

FOR THE PAST 25 years, Jerome Featherstone Sr. was known to local high school wrestling aficionados as "the only guy to beat Rico." Rico is Rico Chiaparelli, perhaps the greatest wrestler to come out of the Baltimore area's greatest high school wrestling program: Mount St. Joseph. Chiaparelli went on to finish fifth, fourth and then first in the NCAA championships during his three years as a varsity starter at the University of Iowa. Featherstone's life took a different path: three years in the Marines, a marriage of 19 years, three children, and coach of the McKim Center junior league wrestling team, where he steered perhaps dozens of black boys away from the clarion call of the streets.

Ryan Lauer of River Hill learned quickly about the pressure of following an undefeated brother into the world of high school wrestling. Last season, the Hawks wrestled perennial county power Hammond in a December dual meet, and, with his college freshman brother, Brandon, watching, Ryan walked over to check in at the scorer's table. That's when Golden Bears fans chanted, "You're not Brandon." "I got a little upset," said Lauer, then a freshman. "I thought it was kind of harsh on their part.

IT'S FUNNY how acting on a whim can take you back 35 years. I was recovering from a nasty virus my grandchildren -- Senor Spences and his kid sister and partner in contagion, Kaila -- had passed on to me nearly two weeks earlier. (They recovered sooner, proving that their little bodies are made for regeneration and rejuvenation and granddad's is made for the couch.) It was the Saturday before the Super Bowl. I trolled the papers, antsy to get out, afflicted with borderline cabin fever and looking to take in some wrestling because the virus had caused me to miss the Hammond tournament a week earlier.

RECENTLY I wrapped up the "I am the dad of a high school wrestler" stage of my life. Like most matters connected with high school wrestling, my goodbye was intense and long-lasting. It stretched over three weekends. First there was a conference tournament, a spirited two-day affair held at Mount St. Joseph in West Baltimore. Next there was a state tournament, an even noisier two-day drama held at McDonogh in Owings Mills. Then there was the National Prep School Wrestling Championships held last weekend at Lehigh University outside Allentown, Pa. This was an eight-mat extravaganza that lasted either three days or an eternity, depending on how your back felt after you had been sitting in the stands.

MOTHERS, DON'T let your babies grow up to be wrestlers. Trust me. You'll hate it. The only activity our sons could choose that would be less mother-friendly is patrolling sniper zones in the Balkans. Wrestling is as close to hand-to-hand combat as your baby boy can get without carrying a knife between his teeth. There is no place for mothers in wrestling. "I watch through my fingers," one wrestling mother told me. "I am afraid to be here in case something happens. But I am afraid not to be here in case something happens.

A Montgomery County Circuit Court judge denied yesterday the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association's move to block a lawsuit seeking another upper-weight class for public high school wrestling.Attorney Robin Ficker, who sued in September, said Judge James Chapin also scheduled four days beginning Jan. 10 to hear arguments, after which he will rule on whether a 215-pound weight class should be created. The state's heaviest classifications are 189 pounds and unlimited (a maximum of 275 pounds)