It is during our darkest moments that we
must focus to see the light. Aristotle Onassis
•••••
FIVE IN THE MORNING, and I cruise
on a treadmill at the gym. I wear ear
buds, and listen to a YouTube video of my favorite spiritual guru, Gabby
Bernstein. I’m no spirit junkie, as Gabby calls herself. I’m just a wrestling coach with an open mind,
and I like to double-down on good vibes in the morning. This morning, it’s exercise and positive
messages. Gabby tells me to “be the
light” today. I resolve to try.
I glance at a TV screen 20
feet away, where images capture my attention. A beautiful woman in a white toga lights the
Olympic Flame in Greece, and after its journey across that ancient country, the
Flame will snake through Brazil on a 95-day tour, culminating in Rio at the 2016
Summer Olympic Games.
The Flame news story invokes
memories of ten days ago–the United States Olympic Trials in freestyle
wrestling, and the plights of two athletes I’ve admired from a distance for
many years. I recognize that if they
were in my place on the treadmill, and caught this news report, it would crush
them all over again. That’s the trouble
with deep scars. There are always reminders,
so it’s death by a thousand cuts. I'm
human, and feel heartache for both, so I wonder how I could possibly “be the
light" for them, or at least try to find the good, hidden in most bad
situations. I open up to the idea, take
a few deep breaths, and an idea surfaces.
Maybe I can find a light in their circumstances, through writing.
Like a wrestler battling
doubts, a writer sometimes faces the inadequacy of his
tools–words, in trying to paint a
picture of happenings so powerful that they can never be truly understood,
except by those living them. After
watching the 2016 Trials, I find myself in that position, wondering if my words
might offer anything. Still, in facing
difficult challenges, I’ve learned to simply do my best, and have faith that my
work will lead to someplace bright. I
decide to try.
I know neither of these athletes
personally, other than some pleasant Facebook messaging with one. But then, who really knows a person? In truth, we are all outsiders, and can only
speculate on the depths of what others celebrate, or suffer.
•••••
Determination
becomes obsession, and then it becomes all that matters. Jeremy Irvine
•••••
Two extraordinary athletes, a young
man and a young woman, stalk the same dream.
She has traded most of her young life for the rarest of opportunities, and
he has done the same. The dream they
chase is more than a goal. Goals are important
and powerful, but are often usual, everyday things. Losing ten pounds is a goal. Or, earning an A on a test. Winning an Olympic Gold Medal in wrestling is
an unusual, once in a lifetime achievement
for an infinitesimal few. In the
hierarchy of goal setting, or even obsession, this quest sits many rungs
higher, miles beyond ordinary. It wouldn’t
be too dramatic to say that this pursuit is akin to life and death. When a person literally trades his life for
something, faithfully and unconditionally, and suddenly loses that thing, it must
feel like a living death, a death of the soul–spiritually, emotionally, and
psychologically. For elite athletes who
are accustomed to winning, and cannot conceive of losing, the initial shock is
stunning. The aftermath, when thoughts
race and reality sets in, causes the pain to remain fresh and flowing for days,
years, and perhaps, a lifetime. Even the
consolation prize of being the first alternate for the United States Olympic
Team is no comfort, and in many ways, adds to the pain. Pick your cliché: So near, yet so far. All, or none.
Second place, is last place.
•••••
Sunday,
April 10, 2016 • U.S. Olympic Team Trials • Carver-Hawkeye Arena
•••••
Victoria Anthony and Tony Ramos dream of being
Olympic Champions. They are beautiful
athletes with distinctly different public personas and wrestling styles. Victoria is friendly and outgoing, with an
explosiveness on the mat rarely seen in women’s wrestling. Tony sports a perpetual game face, is openly
intimidating, and usually bullies opponents, in prototypical Iowa style.
Victoria is a four-time WCWA Women’s National
Champion, a former World Team member, a Junior World Champion, and was 3rd
in the 2012 Olympic Trials.
Tony is an NCAA Champion and three-time All-American
for the Iowa Hawkeyes, is a current World Team member, and has been the
dominant American at his weight for two years.
He is the top seed.
Both athletes ride
their preparation, personalities, and styles into the Sunday evening championship
finals of their divisions at the Trials.
They take the mat, with their lives on the line.
•••••
A
Match
•••••
It’s just a match, like a thousand
before it. Six minutes of time. But it’s a match that, if permitted, defines
the life previous, and the lifetime remaining.
It seems so out of balance. Years
of excessive pursuit of a dream funnel down to one six-minute window, or even
one precise moment–a speck on that window.
An imperceptible mistake. A microscopic
lapse in focus. An uncharacteristic surrender
of perfect body position, and poof,
it’s over. With everything on the line,
Victoria and Tony lose. Neither will
represent America, in Rio.
They are just
two of many who suffer losses of this magnitude on this day. As such, they are each just another wrestling
news story, because in every match, someone wins, and someone loses. But there is an allure in these massive
losses, like the captivation of a passerby, unapologetically gawking at a horrific
car wreck. Did anybody die?
The aftermath of defeat is what
distinguishes one loss from another, one person from the next. How does one respond in the moments and hours
following a shattered dream? Most of us
will never find out, because we have neither the talent or will to chase
something with virtually impossible odds.
In their own ways, Tony and Victoria–bursting with talent and will–allow
us inside their pain.
•••••
So
great was the extremity of his pain and anguish,
that he did not only sigh, but roar. Matthew Henry
•••••
"I was
stabbed in the back." Tony Ramos
speaks deliberately in a post-apocalypse press conference. The familiar game face threatens to melt at
any moment. Some say the interview is
brutally timed, occurring while he is still reeling from the stunning finality
of the loss. His heart is broken. His thoughts race. Emotions work on him, but he tightens his
lips and muscles through it. He’s an
old-school Hawkeye, perhaps the last of a legendary breed.
After the obligatory
acceptance of responsibility, "First, the loss is on me," Tony's
subsequent comments reveal his true anguish.
He lashes out at his coach, Olympic Gold Medalist Tom Brands, for
promising to be in his corner, but who instead sits between the two Hawkeyes
(Ramos battles former Hawkeye Daniel Dennis in the finals), and coaches
neither. Ramos also challenges the
loyalty of another coach, Ryan Morningstar, after spotting Morningstar and
Dennis eating dinner together. In
calling out others and seemingly deflecting responsibility, he shows a soft
underbelly, perhaps for the first time in his career. It belies the bulletproof, take-no-prisoners armor
of stare-downs and machismo for which he is famous. To those of us watching from afar, we finally
see that Tony Ramos has feelings, and bleeds like the rest of us. He is human, after all.
Ramos and Tom
Brands each take incoming shots following the press conference, but it runs much
deeper than an athlete airing dirty laundry that is best contained inside the
walls of the Dan Gable Wrestling Complex.
Brands may or may not have told Ramos he would corner him, or he may not
have communicated well, or he may have just gotten stuck. As a wrestling coach for many years, I’ve
experienced similar moments–loyal to two opposing forces, loving both sides in some cases, getting caught in the
middle, and bungling things. It
happens. Admittedly, it’s unprecedented
in a situation as dramatic as the one traversed by Ramos and Dennis. But rather than judging Brands, it might be decent
to attempt to understand him in the context of this complicated situation. He coached Ramos for five years as a Hawkeye,
and several more years in freestyle wrestling.
Brands and Dennis have a similar history. For years, Brands has given both wrestlers everything
he has. Then, at the decisive moment, he
sits in the corner of neither, effectively showing loyalty to both.
After Tony has his say, Brands
counters in his own presser with, “When you're in a guy's corner, you’re in his
corner for life. I've been in that guy's (Tony’s) corner since
the day he walked on campus.” He
believes the bigger picture matters.
•••••
To
forgive is to set a prisoner free, and discover that the prisoner was you. Lewis B. Smedes
•••••
Tom Brands has
always seemed the very embodiment of loyalty.
Here, he finds himself entangled in an impossible situation involving
true-blue Hawkeyes, and despite criticisms of his actions, he’s earned the
benefit of the doubt. Tom bleeds, and he
is human, too. He deserves forgiveness.
Tony Ramos has also earned a
pass. He suffers a devastating loss to a
former Hawkeye in his home arena, a place where he has never lost over the long
course of his career. Beyond the crushing
disappointment, he may feel he has lost face.
His wrestling persona is that of a bully, and when a bully is challenged
and defeated by a beloved underdog, the bully is left empty, while the underdog
is adored. If Goliath had lived, his
image and legacy would have been forever altered, while David ascended to a
throne.
Further, at the
highest levels, where technique and bodies and tactics are ultra
fine-tuned,
wrestling morphs into a mental game. The
absence of his coach in the corner may be the chink in Tony’s mental armor that
Dennis exploits. In an athlete’s terms, it
got in his head. In razor-thin competition at the highest
level, anything negative in the head can be disastrous.
Perhaps most
significantly, Tony may feel deserted by family–the fiercely loyal Hawkeye
family–perceived by him now, as less than faithful. Rightly or wrongly, he may take the love
showered on Dennis as a personal affront, because Tony is a Hawkeye too, one
who represented as well as any before him.
Still worse, he feels abandoned by his mentor, a man he surely loves, at
the most pivotal moment in his career, if not his life.
This combustible
mix of intense personalities and high stakes, this perfect storm, led to Tony’s
angry press conference. In context, it
is not a bad thing. On the contrary, it
seems perfectly natural under the conditions.
He too, deserves forgiveness
•••••
We can only be said to be alive in those
moments when our hearts
are conscious of our treasures. Thornton Wilder
•••••
Victoria
Anthony suffers in a different way.
Within hours of the most crushing defeat of her career, still stunned,
she is suddenly overcome with gratitude.
She takes to Facebook, and posts the following message:
I just want to say thank you to everyone who has given me so much of their love and support. To my parents, sisters, family, coaches, sponsors, friends, boyfriend, fans. Earlier today I was brought to tears at the realization of all I have to be grateful for via the sport of wrestling – it has brought me my best friends in the world, who have become family to me. Allowed me to travel the world and experience countless cultures. Meet my boyfriend and continue our relationship. Been a vessel for my family and friends to show me just how deep their love is for me – they would all do anything to help me realize my dreams. And they have all made it clear that their love is unconditional. This night makes no sense at all to me and is going to take time to recover from and to understand, but I can be thankful that all of the above remain true. Thank you everyone.
Victoria
signs off with a tiny pink heart. Her
gratitude in the face of acute suffering shows us that in her own journey, she embodies
Cael Sanderson's philosophy. When
listening to any interview with the Penn State coach or his wrestlers,
invariably they credit gratitude as the single most important factor in their
success.
•••••
The
best way to pay for a lovely moment, is to enjoy it. Richard Bach
•••••
At
the Trials, gratitude enables Penn State alum, Frank Molinaro, to relax and
find joy in battling through one of the most brutal brackets of all time. Coming from the ninth seed, the former
Nittany Lion claws his way to a stunning first place finish. What separates him from all of the other NCAA
champions and World Team members in his weight class? His weapon is gratitude. In interviews, he says that competing with
gratitude eliminates pressure, and in what should be the most pressure-packed
event of his life, he relaxes and finds joy in the fight. He somehow travels back in time to become
that happy-hearted, giggling little boy with a twinkle in his eye, scrambling
across a mat. For Frank, the formula is
clear: Gratitude = Joy = Success. Five NCAA team titles in six seasons for Penn
State, is all the proof necessary.
While
gratitude guides Frank Molinaro to his place on the Olympic Team, it empowers
Victoria Anthony to claw out of her living-coffin. Gratitude is her healing light, and she
refuses to dwell in dark places. A few
days following the Trials she is back on her feet, taking action. She posts photos of her freshly scrawled,
year-long training calendar that peaks at the 2017 World Championships, a year after
the current Olympics. For Victoria, the
formula is also clear: Pain + Gratitude
= Motivation.
•••••
At times our own light goes out, and is
rekindled by a spark
from another person. Albert Schweitzer
•••••
I understand Gabby Bernstein's "be
the light" message to mean, take initiative to bring the light into a dark
situation, to somehow infuse positive into a negative circumstance. I am nobody to Tony Ramos and Victoria
Anthony, so I don’t presume that I can affect either in a meaningful way. But as a fan of each, and a wrestling purist
who wants our stars to feel whole and our dynasties to remain intact, maybe I
can find a light to shine on a deeper meaning, to uncover a universal lesson or
two, or to make some difference in how each is perceived going forward.
For Tony, the light may be found in
the lesson of forgiveness, a healing force, and one of the most uplifting gifts
a person may give or receive. Here,
there are many opportunities for Tony, who could forgive himself for what he
may view as his own failure while competing, or could forgive himself for any
regrets about his press conference. He
could offer an olive branch to Tom Brands and Ryan Morningstar, for what he considers
disloyalty. He could forgive the entire
Hawkeye Nation, if it feels right.
The opportunity to forgive is also available
in the other direction–Brands and Morningstar forgiving Ramos for his public rant.
Here, I'm aware that my naivety may be
showing. These are clearly stubborn
people, a trait and asset on full display when they compete. A tangle of ego and pride further complicates
matters. Still, if they can find
forgiveness in their hearts, these once committed relationships emerge stronger
than ever. But someone will have to step
up and go first, for healing to begin.
Maybe it's already happened behind the scenes. I hope so.
If not, pain and anger will persist as a stubborn wound, and fester.
For
Victoria, the light is present in what she intuitively already knows. Gratitude is an absolute healer, a catalyst
for joy, and great performance. Her
message of gratitude, and her massive strength in picking herself up off the
mat and moving forward at the darkest moment, is a lesson for all people.
In the throes of epic
disappointment, no one cares for lectures about life lessons via
adversity. However, it seems clear that
Victoria has learned one, or called on one already in her character: While pursuing something bright and shiny–something
she wants in the worst possible way–she already owns a thing more beautiful, a
tremendous extended-family of people who support her and love her
unconditionally, no matter what happens on any mat. It is from that sturdy foundation that goodness
thrives, and gold medals are won.
This is a tale of two–two human
beings, two medals, and two lights.
Two people react to extreme disappointment
in different ways. It might be tempting
to judge Tony harshly, especially when compared to Victoria’s outpouring of
gratitude. But it’s clear that in a
moment of deepest disappointment, he speaks from the heart and expresses his
truth, without pulling punches. It’s
admirable, and perhaps even worthy of respect. It
mirrors his honest, straightforward approach to a match. Confident, forward, hard. Put it out there, and leave it. Victoria's handling of the situation needs little analysis. Her own words are enough, beautiful and enlightening.
Two silver medals represent crushing
setbacks with the power to cripple each athlete, or spring them forward. Which, depends on how they ultimately
respond.
Finally,
two gentle lights–forgiveness and gratitude–guiding us out of dark places.
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