Great stories are great. Great stories are fun. Unless they have to go through your team.
Arizona State wrestler Anthony Robles was born without right hip bone, meaning he also was born without a right leg.
Maybe you have heard the story? It was reported all around the country: ESPN, Fox Sports, even Gregg Doyel of CBSSports.com wrote about him. I almost did myself, but his loss at the 2008 NCAA Wrestling Tournament one match shy of being an All-American left me too disappointed. He deserved his story to wait.
While Robles still has not clinched All-American status at this year’s NCAA Tournament– he needs to win either his next match on Friday morning or the two matches after that if he were to lose– he still has put together an impressive showing. He has dispatched two Big Ten wrestlers in the first two rounds, including fifth-seeded Charlie Falck of the top-ranked Iowa Hawkeyes.
If he were to beat fourth-seeded Brandon Precin of Northwestern, which would be his third consecutive win over a Big Ten wrestler, the 12th-seeded Robles will be an All-American. He will also be in the semifinals of the 125 pound weight class at the NCAA Wrestling Tournament.
More simply, he will be two wins from a national title.
And as great as that is, it almost never happened.
On May 13, Arizona State Athletic Director Lisa Love made an unexpected announcement. Love stated that in order to save $1.1 million annually, the Sun Devils were dropping three sports, wrestling among them. Arizona State was joining PAC-10 brethren Oregon in dropping wrestling in 2008.
The Arizona State Sun Devils, winners of the 1988 NCAA Team Championship and the only school not from the states of Iowa, Minnesota or Oklahoma to win the team championship since 1967, would suddenly be without a wrestling program.
Anthony Robles, the man with no right leg, would be without a sport.
But Arizona State still has a wrestling program. Arizona State still has a wrestling program and it is kicking.
Just a few days after Love cut the wrestling program, she stated that if the three sports could raise enough money to be self-sufficient, Arizona State would reinstate the programs.
You know how long it took? Any idea?
Ten days after Arizona State cut wrestling, it reinstated the program. In a week-and-a-half, fans, boosters, friends, and parents raised $8 million. That is just crazy.
It took two months to save swimming. Tennis never made it.
But that is what wrestling fans do.
Wrestling is probably the only sport with enough of a community that people will routinely donate huge amounts of money to save a program at a rival school or even a school on the other side of the country. I myself proudly wear my “Save Fresno State Wrestling” shirt whenever it is clean. I’m still bitter of the failure of our efforts.
I have never been within 100 miles of Fresno in my life. We love the competition that much that we’ll spend our money to keep our product around, even where we’ll never visit.
That’s just what wrestlers do.
And that’s just what saved Anthony Robles’s career as a Sun Devil.
But the other thing you need to know about wrestlers is loyalty. A wrestler is always loyal.
My team is Northwestern. I bleed the purple and white on the mat. I’ve ordered six school’s CSTV packages to watch or listen to Northwestern wrestling matches since Northwestern does not broadcast its own matches, at least not online.
Now, the great story meets my team, and I’m stuck in a pickle.
Do I root for the kid born without the right leg? Or do I root for Northwestern?
The one thing you need to know about me is I’m not good at making decisions.
Robles and Precin, Precin and Robles. Sophomore and junior, junior and sophomore. What do I do? Can I pick between them? I guess I must.
In wrestling, you never root against someone. Never. You respect the effort he, or in some cases, she, has put in to reach this point.
You respect the days, nights, weeks he has gone without eating, the extra laps he has run to make weight, the rigor he trains with.
You root for your guy, not against the other. You respect the other guy too much.
But this, this is hard. Great story vs. Your team always is.
In 2006, George Mason played the University of Florida in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four, creating a similar predicament.
What did I do? Remove all the green and yellow from my room. Having green couches, it was not an easy task.
But I did it.
Now, I won’t go that far this time. I’m not removing the red and gold. But I have to root for Precin.
I’m sorry, story; I’m sorry.
The Robles story is nice, but I must root for Precin. I must root for my boy.
I hope Robles takes third; God knows if he does, I may write him the full story he deserves. But not tonight.
Not with a national championship on the line.
Tonight, I hope Precin continues his quest for an individual championship. I hope he does.
It’s a good story, but for one night, it just is not for me.