Rounding the Bases (part 3)

This is the third column in a series of three that took third place for Sports Column Writing during the 2009 Wyoming Press Association awards.

By BRENDAN BURNETT-KURIE

Amazingly, I didn’t throw up.

That’s because I quit.

I tried. I really did. But, I couldn’t do it.

For 70 of the brutalist minutes of my life, I dragged myself through wrestling practice. And then I was done. Finito.

There’s one undisputable difference between basketball practice (whether boys or girls) and wrestling. And it only took me 15 minutes to figure it out.

Pain.

Pure, anadulterated, searing, sharp, agonizing, piercing, dull pain.

Now, I knew this was going to hurt. I knew I was going to get tired. But, I quickly learned, I had no idea.

The bottom of my feet were killing me. My lower back was on fire. My shoulder was throbbing. My neck was shooting lasers of hurt. My hamstrings were balled into rocks beneath my skin. My wrists ached. I was dizzy. I was tired. My eyes burned fire-engine red from the stinging sweat the poured down my brow.

I was an unequivocal mess.

So that’s why I quit.

If you haven’t caught up to speed, I spent a recent Wednesday afternoon with a quirky pair of wrestling shoes on my feet and my shirt tucked in so I wouldn’t break my fingers at a Douglas High School wrestling practice. And in the end it was worse than basketball. Not because I was more tired, but because I wanted to cry.

Naively, I expected practice to start with stretching. But according to my good ole buddy Darrell Dryden’s method, first we wreck havoc on our bodies, then we stretch.

First, there were six stations of weights. They varied from manageable (a ball throw) to physiologically impossible (anything involving kettle bells, which for those like me who didn’t know are 35 and 55 pound balls of lead). Luckily for the reading audience, I had a fellow reporter on hand to record my regrettable ramblings.

“I can’t do this. I can’t do this,” I moaned just 20 minutes in.

Dryden was already yelling at me. At one point I put my kettle bell down and put my hands on my knees, completely exhausted. All of a sudden, from across the padded room I heard this small-in-stature-but-intimidating man screaming at me.

“Don’t let it touch the ground!” he screamed at me. “I don’t want to see that thing touch the ground again.”

Feeling like an intimidated teenager, I bent over and picked it up. About three inches off the ground. I was just too tired.

I skipped a sprint and a set of 10 pushups just 20 minutes into practice.

“How do they do this?” I asked rhetorically as I clutched my lower back. “Is that stretching?”

“These kids are 16, 17, 18, they don’t need to stretch,” Activities Director (there just to be amused by my antics) said.

Somehow, because the fates were obviously smiling on me, I found myself across the circle from Pierre Etchemendy. He will hereafter be referred to as “The Strong One.”

So I had to practice with “The Strong One.” My first task was to bend at the waist, allow this 180-pound behemoth to grab me by the back of the neck and throw my face into the mat at approximately 4,000 mph.

You may have guessed that’s why my neck was hurting. And still is.

At this point my head was swirling, my vision blurred and my balance faltered. I quickly departed the mat with the distinct purpose of passing out. After taking a seat and clearing my head, I went back out. Minutes later, I was retreating to the safe confines of the office for good.

“I want to quit so bad,” I said. “So bad.”

My lower back was destroyed from getting twisted, turned and bent in every direction. My feet hurt because there is no arch support in wrestling shoes, while moving on a malleable mat. My shoulder hurt from “The Strong One” flipping me over his shoulder and onto my own.

I wanted to leave, but I didn’t. I stayed around for “live wrestling” because, well, because I was too ashamed to leave.

“I want to leave so bad,” I said. “Only pride is keeping me here.”

So an hour later I was back out there, circling with Rob Colomb, who hereafter will referred to as “The One Who Smiled Too Much When He Got To Wrestle The Sports Reporter” or “TOWSTMWHGTWTSR” for short.

I bee-lined to the wall, stood my ground (by which I mean I lay on my stomach against the wall and didn’t let him flip me) and didn’t get pinned. Then I went against Quentin Kane. He pinned me. Then I went up against TOWSTMWHGTWTSR again, and he pinned me. I actually screamed in pain at one point.

Emotionally and physically I was now a wreck. I slunk away to wrestle off my shoes and escape before I could receive a verbal barrage I’m sure would counter the physical one I had just received.

I limped out to my car, my left leg barely working. With an audible yelp I dropped into the seat. I pushed down on the clutch, sparked the engine and went to pull away from the curb. Not so easy.

My leg was so tired I couldn’t pull up on my ankle, releasing the clutch. My car slowly rolled into the curb and stalled.

Imagine if I hadn’t quit.

For those who want my final decision on which practice was tougher, here’s an actual quote I uttered just over an hour into practice.

“Five straight basketball practices would be nothing compared to this.”