Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 28, 1994 TAG: 9401270119
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-8 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RAY COX
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The grace and athleticism of the athletes; the hysteria and devotion of the fans; the ability of the athletes to capture the imagination of a worldwide audience - the game is special.
Many of the adherents of hoops make the claim that it is a tough sport, too. Certainly some of the game's skills are difficult to acquire. So what? That, too, is true of pool and dressage.
Tough, you say?
You want tough, you wrestle. As the saying goes, "Boys play basketball; girls play volleyball; men wrestle."
It is a question not even worthy of debate. Herein are 10 reasons why wrestling is tougher than basketball.
\ REASON 1: In basketball, "a facial" refers to having your shot blocked. Poor baby. In wrestling, a facial means having your visage mashed into a mat like a fat guy with a beer gut and a four-day beard grinds a cigar butt into an ash tray.
\ REASON 2: Probably 172 times a year, people hear basketball coaches moaning because such-and-such a star player is "sick." You know how it is this time of the year, they say, everybody's getting colds and flu, not to mention Jimmy Jumpshot is running a fever.
Be still my sympathetic heart!
At the state Group A wrestling tournament in Salem last year, a championship match had to be halted three times because one of the contestants had a rebelling belly. They even brought over a large trash can matside so the kid could hang his head into it and hold on tight in the manner of a seasick guy from Nebraska on his first deep-sea fishing cruise draped over the rail contemplating the depths of the Gulf Stream.
After the last of these interruptions, the unfortunate wrestler's coach hollered loud enough for the whole Salem Civic Center to hear: "You come back over here one more time and I'm throwing in the towel. I've never in my life seen such a lack of guts!"
No wonder, Coach. The kid left them in the trash can.
\ REASON 3: When a basketball coach says his center has a weight problem, the usual prescription is two more pancakes at breakfast, an extra cheeseburger at lunch, and three more chocolate milkshakes for between-meal snacks.
When a wrestling coach says his guy has a weight problem, the prescription is one grapefruit and water for breakfast, nothing for lunch, and a concentration camp supper of three pinto beans and a demitasse cup half-full of chicken broth.
\ REASON 4: When the basketball coach says his guy is out of shape, the directive is for five more suicide drills after practice.
The wrestling coach says his guy's out of shape and they wrap him in 14 layers of clothing, encase him from neck to ankles in plastic as though he were an order just returning from the dry cleaners, and send him on a little run.
Blacksburg to Pearisburg and back will do.
\ REASON 5: In basketball, you're hardly ever to blame. It's your teammate's fault; he threw the crummy pass. It's the official's fault; he wouldn't know a foul if it jumped up and took a chunk out of the seat of his britches. It's the coach's fault; where did he ever get the idea your team could handle a press?
In wrestling, it's just you, the ref, your opponent and the angels. Your opponent is always exactly the same size as you (except if you're a heavyweight, but that's a gray area we won't get into here). You goof something up and everybody from your girlfriend to your Aunt Flotilla knows who's to blame.
\ REASON 6: When you go to basketball practice, you do so in an airy, brightly-lit gymnasium festively decorated with banners.
When you go to wrestling practice, they put you in a tiny, airless dungeon in the bowels of the building where rancid water from rusting pipes drips on you constantly.
The temperature in this cell is either 41 degrees or 104.
\ REASON 7: When a basketball team goes to the state tournament, they have a ticker-tape parade through the halls of the school, the cheerleaders give you a big, fat, lipstick-laden smack on the cheek, and the booster club buys you a steak dinner.
When a wrestling team goes to the state tournament, the sweet but elderly secretary in the office smiles at you through her dentures and they take you out for a hot dog.
If you're lucky, they put mustard and chili on it.
\ REASON 8: Young basketball players have Shaquille O'Neill, Charles Barkley, and Chris Webber to look up to. All wrestlers have to look up to are "Nature Boy" Ric Flair, Hulk "Pass the Steroids" Hogan, and Ravishing Rick Rude.
\ REASON 9: In basketball, star players can look forward to a scholarship at an esteemed institution such as North Carolina or UCLA. Star wrestlers go to places like Wringyourneck State and Grapple U.
\ REASON 10: Basketball players play their games dressed in their underwear.
Wrestlers go to the mat in a garment that, had they lived in Victorian times, would have landed the wearer in jail for public indecency.
No wonder cheerleaders don't work many wrestling matches. Their parents won't let them.
Ray Cox covers New River Valley sports for the Roanoke Times & World-News
by CNB