I was at the golf regionals in Alma and I wore my Red Olivet College Football ball cap. I was asked by the golf pro if I played football at Olivet College and I told him that I wrestled at Olivet College. He asked me if I wrestled for Coach Hibbs while I was there. I smiled said no I wrestled for Coach Klein. I told them I recommended Coach Hibbs to the college president. I also told him that I would be 60 years old this year and he said no way. My quess is coach Hibbs is around 40 years old. He could not believe that I was that old and said that I certainly do not look that old. It was fairly dark in the clubhouse and he probably did not see the grey in my beard but I took it as a compliment. I was asked to play football at the end of my sophomore year at Olivet. The football coaches had talked to Coach Klein before they talked to me. They wanted me to play split or what they called open end. I turned them down because the wrestling team was going to be allowed to go to the national tournament for the first time and I did not want to get hurt. I had a falling out with Coach that year and did not finish the wrestling season so I wish I had played on the football team that had a great season. The falling out with Coach Klein was caused by a misunderstanding and I do not blame him for this. It is fortunate that I did not finish the wrestling season. During the season I suffered another concussion and broke my collarbone which I did not find out until recently when I was having shoulder problems and I had a cat scan and MRI on the area. I had my tonsils taken out the year before and I was not given enough antibiotics after the surgery and I ended up with a strep infection in my blood stream which was making me extremely tired and effected my wrestling. After I stopped wrestling I got sicker and ended up going to Dr. Frankenstein (yeah that was he real name) who was the team physician. I thought I had mono. He did an examination along with a blood test in his office lab. He listened to my heart and said my valves were sluggish and started asking me if I had rheumatic fever, strep throat and other strep related problems and that is when I told them that I had my tonsils taken out the previous spring. He had me do some jumping jacks and my heart valves worked good under stress so he caught this strep infection in time. He told me that in a couple of weeks I probably would have died. (If I had continued wrestling I also might of died due to the stress) I got a shot of penicillin in each cheek if you know what I mean and a script for antibiotics. I had to change antibiotics every two weeks and took them for most of the summer. He told me to go home and recuperate and to follow up with my doctor in Chelsea. The strep infection also damaged my liver and kidneys. I had missed a lot of school that year and was failing many of my classes. I wrote and or telephoned each of my professors asking them to send me the final exams and other missing work and plead to them to help me. Three professors helped me and I was able to pass their courses and I am still indebted to them but the other two did not and I failed their classes. So I only had 9 hours of credit that semester so I was academical ineligible for athletics for the fall semester. I had planned on playing football that fall but could not and I also could not wrestle first semester. The bad grades dropped my GPA down to under a 3.00 and I had to work very hard my senior year to get the GPA back up. I did go back out for wrestling but was not given much of a chance even though I was undefeated and beaten some very good wrestlers and many at 150 lbs when I was only 138 pounds. Coach ended up staying with another wrestler at 142 and would not let me challenge him for the spot. He told me that I could back up or challenge the 150 lbs wrestler who happened to be one of my pledge sons. I do not know if I could beat him but did not want to take his spot so I stopped wrestling again because of this. I should have appealed the coaches decision but I did not know how to do this. I really should have been allowed to wrestle 134. I would have been a league champ at 134 or 142 and would have qualified for nationals and I am sure I would have placed. We lost a close match to Western Michigan University that I think if I was allowed to wrestle we would have won. I just wish I would have played football and fought to keep my position on the wrestling team. I love Coach Klein but we did have our differences and I realize that I was not a very easy person to coach. I should have done some things differently but hindsight is 20/20 and you learn from your mistakes, no one is perfect. I was not satisfied with not playing football in college or finishing wrestling and that is why I wrestled off and on until I was over 30 years old and played semi-pro football for three teams until I was about 32 years old and I am still coaching.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Jun 2013 13:49:28 +0000
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