This is for Brian Pisegna…
This past Friday I was at Shifty’s in Eastwood watching the Delinquents, a sweet blues band made up of 75% Corcoran kids. Needless to say, a great number of stories were told about high school, including one conversation that I had with Brian Pisegna, a kid I graduated with. Brian and I were both wrestlers at Fowler High School (Corcoran did not have a team), the high school I currently teach English at. Our coach, Rick Spicer, is now the athletic director, and every now and again he’ll remind me of “THE pin” that vaulted me into Fowler and wrestling lore forever. Brian emphatically retold the story for his Uncle, while I wobbled, laughing at how great that moment in my life truly was. So here goes - my greatest sports moment and my number 4 story of all times.
My dad was the cross country coach at Shea Middle School where I ran for him and had him in 8th grade as my Course I teacher. At the end of the season ice cream party, he was yelling at me for wrestling with other team members and genuinely being an asshole. He then asked me what I thought about wrestling for Shea and a bunch of my friends (Pisegna included) decided to go out for the team. In the years to come, 9 Corcoran wrestlers would venture to Fowler everyday making up the vast majority of the varsity lineup. I was never a very good wrestler. I actually hated it most of the time. All the shit about plastic bags in practice and in bed, hot stairs, mild cases of anorexia, weigh-ins, sucking weight, losing weight etc. are true. There were times when we were simply dead at practice because we’d eaten a half a cup of cereal the day before to try our best to make our weights. In eighth grade I lost my first 7 matches and thought about giving up the sport, when suddenly God came to me in the form of a chubby fat ass named Matt Bort from Oswego, whom I whipped solidly and gained the confidence needed to win a few more matches. In tenth grade I broke a kid’s arm at West Genny. Sometimes I still hear that echoing crack from the gymnasium in my worst nightmares. My mom made me send him two movie gift certificates. I thought I was the baddest motherfucker alive that night.
My junior and senior years were quite short of spectacular. I think I managed to go 12-15 as a junior and maybe eeked out a 17-15 record as a senior. Maybe. Kids that are good at wrestling wrestle year round. They started when they were three and they have an incredible work ethic, because wrestling is hard as fuck. I did it to stay in really good shape and because I looked sexy as shit in a singlet.
