Wrestling Blogs - Richard Rockwell

Flew out to US Nationals again this year, only this time I brought someone to coach from our team.

We get to Vegas only to find out that my kid won't be making weight so he has to wrestle up. While okay at local tournaments, its not quite the same caliber of kids at some local event and after winning his first two, he quickly finds out why he should've made weight.

He puts All-American Tyler Cox on his back three times and gets no points for it. Tyler doesn't take kindly to it and tosses him for 3, two times, quickly reminding my wrestler why you make weight when asked. Thanks Tyler. My wrestler ended up 2-2 in greco and 1-2 in freestyle.

I was helping coach another athlete while down here and I helped him get 3rd at 160. He was happy and so was I. I was also helping coach our nationally known, Team Panama. We've brought home several placers last year and we were hoping for more of the same this year. At the high school ranks, we didn't quite get it done, as Team El Salvador out-wrestled our Panama counterparts. However, at the college ranks, we got our first FILA champ in Chad Hanke, and had two other placers in Clayton Jack and Alan Dickey.

Wednesday we ate at Dick's at New York/New york. A little bit of a different place. Basically, the staff is encouraged to be "dicks" to the customers and the women all get to wear some weird paper hat that has a derogatory comment on it. Very unique as when I went to ask for a menu, I got the finger. Only at Dicks I guess. Actually, I get that at every restuarant I go to.

On Thursday, got plenty of compliments on my "Official member of the Piss and Moan about Everything Club," t-shirt. I had to clrify and say that it wasn't the official name of our club, although sometimes it feels that way.

The night time action was fun, but I had two huge blisters on my feet after day one and so I walked with a ganster limp the rest of the tournament. On top of that, I got a little sick Thursday and pretty much slept all day Friday. I managed to go out Thursday night and eat with some old friends, Levi Weikel-Magden and his National Champion wife, Patricia Miranda(that has an awesome ring to it, Patricia.), as well as my old high school coach, Hans, and some of his kids as well as seeing Shannon Slover(former wrestler from my high school) for the first time in years. Got to eat with them as well as some great female wrestlers in National Champ, Randi Miller, finalist Katie Downing, former Olympic wrestler, Tela O'Donnell and several others whose names I didn't catch.

I tried to be talkative, but being sick didn't help, but I didn't manage to have a Brazilian beer for the first time. One of my goals is to have tried every kind of beer there is. It wasn't bad. Tasted like a cold beer from a different country.

I parted ways early as I felt pretty ill, but got to chat with Levi for a bit. He's came a long ways since the days of me whooping on him when he was a runt.

Friday brought lots of sleep, but I finally managed to get past it by about 8pm and we made our way to Freemont Street.

Freemont Street is a great place to hang out and see some pretty interesting people. Even saw some friends cougar hunting.

I don't what it is about my friend, Ariah, but he seems to always attract some of the weirdest people at Freemont. One guy kept dancing around us and just couldn't stay away from Ariah(got it on video). Another guy got right in Ariah's face talking jibberish and at one point it looked like they were going to fight after the random guy gave Ariah a nice forearm check, but the other guy just kept stumbling and eventually wandered off. We wandered the streets for bit longer and finally made the trip back to our hotel.

Before the night was over though, we managed to finally get our official Team El Salvador shirts from Ariah in a ceremony of sorts. We all got a good laugh.

Saturday we parted ways as we had separate flights. My wrestler and I sat around the airport for a bit and I managed to even see former presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney, pass by. As he walked by, I could literally feel 10% of my money being dragged towards his wallet. It was kind of creepy. Some lady shook hands with him and as he touched her, she was instantly his wife.

The flight home was nice and so was the drive. However, nothing was nicer than finally coming home and seeing my kids and sleeping in a nice soft bed for once.