Some Called It Rasslin’

(a draft of an essay by Phil Rice)

With the internet making the world smaller than ever imagined, nostalgia seems to be a growing hobby as never before, and hooking up with friends from the teenage years brings up what few accessible memories remain in my weathered brain. These memories take on a variety of themes, but I am often reminded that being on the wrestling team was a highlight of my high school years. As a kid I had always wanted to wrestle, and going to Sewanee Academy provided my first real opportunity. I joined the wrestling team and took my place as the smallest guy out there—but that’s one of the cool things about wrestling: physically the playing field is essentially level. (There would eventually be a couple of smaller guys on our team, but when the season began I was the lightest.)

The team was split down the middle between seasoned veterans and various levels of beginners, and for high school wrestlers being a beginner is traditionally tough. The veterans on the team didn’t mind letting us know what that first year was going to be like: “You’re going to lose a lot.” Teasing, yes, but also keeping our expectations in check. They were equally good at letting us know that if we tried hard enough we might just win a couple, too. As far as I know no one on the team ever took any pleasure in seeing any teammate lose, and in fact we followed each other’s matches intently, with lots of encouragement even for the ones we didn’t necessarily care for on a personal level. I would later be on a team at another school where such unity was not the case, a point that gave me a good lesson that I still remember.

Among the beginners I started out with the least chance. Nearly every other wrestler was fresh from football season, and my lack of athletic conditioning was obvious. A couple of weeks of not quitting changed that situation considerably, and quitting never entered my mind. One friend who did quit was William Montgomery, a tough little football player from Carrollton, Mississippi. He was the 119lb wrestler and I was the 112lb. My normal weight was actually around 120, but I was convinced by the coach that I should shed a few pounds. This not only filled a vacant spot on our varsity roster, it also kept me from having to wrestle William for his 119 spot. Maybe later in the year I could have won that position, but in those first weeks that cocky little man from the Delta enjoyed rubbing my face in the mat, so dropping down a weight class did seem advantageous. William was my good friend and roommate at Sewanee, and I'm sure he had his reasons, but I never did understand how he could quit the wrestling team in mid-season. I loved it.

My closest friend on the team was a fellow beginner named Will Kern. Will was around 155lbs and exceedingly non-athletic in appearance. The other wrestler in that weight class, Phil Sullivan, had the exact opposite build. “Sully” had the compact muscular body of a weightlifter while Will was cut more like a concert pianist; Sully had a little bit of experience and usually edged Will in their wrestle offs, but Will more than held his own in these intra-squad matches. Many times that year Will’s opponent would be misled by that soft appearance, especially when he was wrestling at 167--almost 20 pounds beyond his best weight (such was the fate when he was not able to defeat David Acuff or Sully in wrestle-offs for the 148 or 155 spots--but at least he could eat). By the time the opponent realized that Will was in fact strong as a bull it was often too late. Among the first year wrestlers, Will ultimately proved to be the most formidable. He is now a fine playwright and talented essayist, and specifically does not wax poetic on his days on the wrestling team at Sewanee, but I’m writing about it here and sending him a copy. (Like it or not, you were a pretty good wrestler, Will. And I hope you don’t take it personally that I said you were built like a concert pianist. I didn’t mean it, even though it’s true.)

We were a fairly successful team that year, partially because a few big-hearted newcomers exceeded expectations. Guys like Tim Williams, Mark Gillespie, and Jeff Davis, first-year wrestlers who, like Will and myself, managed to pull off a few key wins along the way. At midseason Jay Robillard was badgered to the point of joining the team. He was one of the few viable candidates on campus for the 101lb spot, and after many refusals Jay gave in and became the one varsity member smaller than me. I don't recall if I took advantage of this fact by roughing him up in practice or not, but I'll just say I was glad to not be the bottom rung any longer.  Jay had a tough time early on but by the season's end he too had notched a victory. All of these guys and a few others contributed, but the team and its success were built around a core group of veterans: Chip Carrier, Mike Walton, David Acuff, and Bill Harrison. These guys had a combined record in dual matches (school versus school) that year of something like 55 and 3. Seriously.

Bill Harrison was a proctor in the dorm hall where I lived (a proctor being a student who was basically in charge of other students. Think of it as a position similar to being a trustee in prison, though this is probably an unfair comparison). Bill was a 185 lb wise-guy, and I was a 112 lb wise-guy, which meant two things: he and I wouldn’t like each other, and I wouldn’t have any chance against him in a physical confrontation. Only my acceptance of this latter point kept me from getting daily beatings, and this was before wrestling season even began. I was also fairly fleet of foot, which might have saved me a time or two as well. Bill was a co-captain and a darn good wrestler, but I paid more attention to the other three. They were all from the same neighborhood in Nashville, not far from my own home. This was comforting in boarding school. They were a tight unit, and they took me in as a friend despite my having an alligator mouth attached to a hummingbird tail. And most importantly, they were good teachers, and in ways I'm sure they didn't even realize at the time.

Mike Walton was two weight classes above me at 126 lbs. This meant that we would often be opponents in practice sessions, and I can say without a doubt that Mike taught me more about wrestling than anyone. In addition to being the smoothest wrestler, he was the coolest guy on the team, hands down (though Bill Harrison would likely disagree with this assessment.) Mike was aloof and laid back. He seemed to be doing just enough to win, and he usually did win. Unlike the stereotypical image of a wrestler, Mike was no jock, but he was a good athlete, and he was smart. I would later become a decent wrestler myself, bearing some of these same characteristics, and I pretty much stayed with the stuff Mike showed me.

The biggest guy on the team was Chip Carrier. Chip was a co-captain, and in fact often served as our coach when it came to technique. Coach Tanksley was a good man and was great with conditioning and morale, but by his own admission he knew little about the sport of wrestling. Fortunately he was smart enough to give Chip and some of the others an active voice in practice, so we learned. Most of our dual matches were spread out among small-town schools in rural Middle and East Tennessee. The concept of having the level playing field is actually not always true for heavyweights. Chip was right at 200lbs, which is big but not huge. Invariably the other heavyweight would be a big country boy who would outweigh Chip by at least thirty pounds. These guys were typically strong and willing but Chip was more than a match for them. In fact, as with Mike Walton, he never lost in a dual match that year. He was very clever and had a series of moves designed especially for those corn-fed country boys. I have no idea how he did it, but he could pull those round boys over backwards and have them pinned in the first minute, sometimes with the first real move. When the opponent was from a bigger city school or one of the private schools we saw at the tournaments, things were frequently a bit tougher. At those times Chip was often faced with 6’5” monsters that were a solid 250+ lbs with tons of experience, but he still held his own and always made it at least to the quarterfinals and often the finals. He was tough.

Chip and I would both end up at Maryville College after high school. He was a little older than me and we didn’t hang out together often, but knowing he was in the neighborhood was somehow reassuring. We remained good friends and our bond was tight. I always thought of him as an elder-brother figure of sorts, and he seemed to share the sentiment.

Situated on the scales between Mike Walton and Chip Carrier was their buddy David Acuff, the 148-pounder. In boarding school first names are used sparingly. I was “Rice” to most of my fellow students, and I addressed them by their surname, too. David was Acuff but he was more often called “DW” or just “W” (Years later my first point of contention with a certain president was that he absconded the real W’s nickname, even down to the phonetically rendered “Dubya”). And he was good, very good. Kern and especially Sully could make him work for it, but in practice Acuff pretty much handled everybody below 185 lbs. The only reason he didn’t take the two bigger guys is the old maxim that in a contest between a really skilled little guy and a skilled big guy, the big guy wins. DW might have been the best overall wrestler on the team—a case could be made for Chip and Mike in that department, though both of those guys would likely give the nod to W—but he definitely had the biggest heart. He didn’t lose often and never without a tremendous battle. He also had the most enthusiasm for the sport. He loved pinning me in impromptu wrestling matches long after the season ended. Simply stated, my goal as a wrestler was to be as good as W; I didn’t make it but I might have come close. David Acuff went on to a career as a chaplain in the U.S. Army. Without having to do any research I am certain that he is a squared-away soldier, an exemplary officer, and a fine pastor.  

Our assistant coach was Dale Morton, a former college football player though never a wrestler. He was a good enough guy I suppose, but he quickly took a general dislike to the smart-mouthed 112-pounder. One day the head coach was away and Coach Morton was in charge, and he made the most of the opportunity by riding and verbally abusing me incessantly. Eventually I had enough and stood up and gave him the middle finger with the matching epitaph. I knew it was a big mistake as soon as the words left my mouth, but it was too late. I had to stand my ground and act like I meant it. The wrestling room became deadly silent except for the sound of Morton’s blood boiling; he was so shocked he couldn’t even speak. After a long couple of seconds he started in my direction. He was a large stocky guy—huge compared to me—and only the timely intervention of Chip Carrier kept this story from being more exciting. Chip blocked the coach's path, and as he did so he suggested in a word or two that it would be a good idea for me to leave, thereby preventing me from being tossed through the wall of the rotting little wooden structure where we practiced.

The head wrestling coach was Mark Tanksley, and he was the best athletic coach of any sort I ever had, and in fact he was the only coach who directly made a positive impact on me as a teenager. (The only other wrestling head coach I experienced was Coach MacNamee at Hillsboro. Coach “Mac” was a small-minded man whose worldview was apparently gleaned from being the south end of a north bound donkey, which makes Coach Tanksley seem even more saintly by comparison.) Admittedly, this lack of positive results with regard to other coaches was partially due to my own resistance to authority, but Coach Tanksley was a genuinely good man who took his paternal role seriously, even though he was actually only a few years older than the guys he coached. He knew virtually nothing about the sport of wrestling, but he knew athletics and he knew about character, and he allowed both his compassion and intellect to dictate his policies. The results confirm these virtues, and the fact that I am compelled to write about the bond between members of our wrestling team some thirty years after the fact is a testament to his influence as our coach, pure and simple. At the annual awards banquet my buddy Will Kern received the “Most Improved” award, and deservedly so, but when Coach Tanksley gave me my varsity letter he prefaced it by saying, “In my opinion, Phil was the most improved wrestler on the squad.” That was better than a trophy. I loved the guy, and I still do.

I don’t have a lot of entertaining anecdotes about my wrestling matches, but a couple do stand out in my memory. One involved a dual meet between Sewanee and Columbia Military Academy early in the season. When Coach Tanksley briefed us on the upcoming encounter, he optimistically let us know that we all had a good chance to prevail because the CMA team did not have a very tough line-up—except for Rex Williams, their 112 pounder. The veterans on our team briefed me on Rex—he was a linebacker during the football season who would trim a few pounds for wrestling. He would wrestle at the 112 lb limit during the first half and then finish the year at 107 pounds, and he was a shoo-in to be in the state championships at that weight. My only chance was to drop down a weight class and avoid the confrontation altogether—and possibly even gain a victory against the inexperienced wrestler currently holding down the 105 lb position (after Christmas the weight classes were raised by two pounds.)  I went days without eating and took extra runs around the mountain wearing plastic sweats, and I spit into a cup all the way from Sewanee to Columbia, but I just couldn’t get that last pound off.  Thus I would not only be meat for the famous Rex, but I would be wrestling in a state of physical exhaustion and dehydration. To add to the drama, my parents drove down from Nashville to watch the spectacle, the first time they would see me in a varsity wrestling match.  

Rex turned out to be as awesome as predicted. I didn’t roll over for him though; I struggled and did my best and managed to hold on until finally being pinned sometime in the middle of the second period (wrestling matches were divided into three two-minute periods, and those minutes were excruciatingly long if you were having your butt tossed around the mat by someone like Rex.) I remember being put in a tight hold and “neck-bridging” for what seemed like an eternity before my body gave out and my shoulders touched the mat. I felt properly humiliated to have been handled so easily in front of my parents, but my teammates congratulated me for a fine effort. Their pats on the back would have seemed like sympathy had the CMA coach along with Rex himself not sought me out to tell me how shocked and impressed they were that I had stayed as long as I did with the whirlwind. I had been thoroughly outclassed in strength and skill, but I held out momentarily on heart and guts, a point of which I am now proud to relate. If that sounds like boasting, keep in mind that I still lost the match. Convincingly. A total whuppin'.

A couple of weeks later we were back in our home gym for a meet with Tennessee Temple, a private school out of Chattanooga. The gym at Sewanee was small and invariably filled to the max with enthusiastic students. Sporting events at boarding school were always well attended, both because we were bored and because everybody knew the participants.  The rafters would shake from the cheering—a rarity among the often ignored sport of wrestling—and we loved it. For this particular meet it turned out that my dad was in nearby Monteagle on business, and to my nervous delight, he also showed up to watch the proceedings. There were no foreboding figures on the Temple team on the level of Rex Williams; we had total confidence that the big four of Carrier, Harrison, Acuff, and Walton would win their matches, but in order for the team to win the meet at least a few of the lesser talents would have to win a match, too. At this point I was still the smallest guy on the team, which meant I would be in the first match. I didn’t relish that role. 

My opponent from Temple was short and stocky with a powerful build. My barely perceptible muscles were lean and sinewy. Looking at the two of us shaking hands before the match, any gamblers would have no doubt put their money on the other guy. But as most wrestlers learn early on, looks can be deceiving. Although short for my age, I was relatively tall for my weight class, and my sinewy build wasn’t very impressive but all those pushups were starting to pay off. More importantly, in a large part due to working out with Mike Walton, I was learning how to use my lean build to an advantage. Within the first minute of the match with the stocky kid I was struck by a shocking realization: I could beat this guy. I dominated the first two minutes, and then, sometime in the second period, I did the unthinkable. Using the half-nelson followed by a standard cradle hold—just like they taught me in practice—I pinned his shoulders to the mat.  As the referee slapped the floor and blew his whistle, the gymnasium erupted in cheers and I leapt to my feet in triumph. I suffered from severe astigmatism and could only see a multi-colored blur when I looked toward the spectators, but I knew where Dad was sitting and as I jumped up I turned and flashed a huge smile. For days after that match people would congratulate me and say that if they had ever seen a bigger smile than the one on my face that day, it was the one on my dad’s face. 

After my victory each and every Sewanee grappler won his match, most by pinning their opponent. Some, like myself, gained a notch in the win column for the very first time. There was just no way they were going to lose after my rousing start ("if Rice can win, anyone can win.") Not to be outshone, Carrier and Walton even pinned their opponents in record time, each under the 30 second mark. We kicked some glorious butt that day, and if there had been a game ball for wrestling matches, I’m certain it would have been mine despite the impressive victories of my teammates. It was my Rocky moment. (If I should live another twenty years, I'll write an update, by which time I will have likely made it to the state tournament.)

I’m nearing 50 as I entertain myself with these memories of youth. I’ve never been much for being on formal teams, a point for which I am unapologetic. I am a very loyal person, but I tend to be loyal to people rather than to institutions. I don’t belong to clubs or organizations and don’t align myself blindly with political parties or organizations of any sort. Right or wrong I tend to be gruffly independent. But I do have some intimate understanding of the team concept at its primal best, and that understanding is based on my experience with the Sewanee Academy wrestling team of 1975-76. I’ve carried it with me for many years now, and I’ll keep it with me until I step out of this version of life and into the next. And when that moment comes, I just might duck-walk my way out and graciously accept my point for a successful escape—leaving the discussion as to the possibility of a two-point reversal for others more qualified to consider.