eggplants at the farmer’smarket. And he would always be bigger. Gained two pounds. Gained three pounds. The nurse would remark on how great that was and he must be nursing well, congratulations. It was good for him, it was good for his immune system, keep going.
Thankfully, that equation got intensely more complicated with each passing moment of their lives. The world began to fill them up; it was no longer that simple equation of two. I would never step back in time to that era, not even for a millisecond, nor do I miss it. But it was disorienting years later knowing that each son got on the scale every day before and after practice, trying to get smaller and weigh less, and working that hard to make a certain wrestling weight. But it is what they did. They did it for themselves, for the team, yes. It was about asserting self-control. Yet, a side effect of all the training and making weight was earning the respect of Coach Powell. They did not want to disappoint him.
4
Coach
----
2003–2009
I called Coach Mike Powell and asked him to help. I had the high school head wrestling coach on speed dial, as did most parents of wrestlers on the team, all of the wrestlers, and many of the wrestling alums. By 2007, he had been Weldon’s coach for the last three of four years, and Brendan’s for the last year. A few nights earlier Brendan had pulled a stupid teenage stunt and I was at the end of my mother rope. It had been eleven years since my divorce, and about that long since I was able to ask for any paternal backup. Besides, their father had been living in Europe for three years by then.
“I’ll drive over in about an hour to talk to him,” Powell offered. “Have Colin there too. He should hear this.”
When Powell—that’s what we called him around our house, just one word like Cher, Madonna, Elvis, or Usher—arrived at our house that June night in 2007, straight from a workout, he asked for a glass of water.
“Don’t hug me, I’m sweaty,” he said when I answered the door.
Weldon and I sat on the couch with Colin. Powell was perched on the edge of the red Chinese Chippendale chair; Brendan sat across from him in a matching chair. Although he was in his early thirties, Powell looked at least ten years younger—baby-faced with dark eyes underneath wire-rimmed glasses, sporting a dark mustache and goatee. On his head were outbursts of jet-black hair; it had grown out since he shaved his head bald with the team just before Thanksgiving—an annual team ritual that made for rotten family holiday photos. The wrestling season haircut is why we posed for holiday pictures in the summer.
Powell talked for close to an hour, his voice deep and low, forceful but not punitive, looking directly at Brendan. And Brendan looked straight at him and stayed silent, nodding, listening, not lowering his eyes or walking away, the way he did when I confronted him. With Powell it was eye-to-eye.
“It doesn’t matter in the end what kind of wrestler you are,” he told Brendan. “It matters what kind of man you are.” He paused. “I love you no matter if you win or not. But the point is to be a good man.”
And then he left.
“Good to see you in practice,” Powell wrote on a brochure for wrestling camp he sent to Colin as an eighth grader when he worked out with the team off-season.
Colin broke his collarbone on the first night of that summer’s wrestling camp; a much heavier boy slammed into him against the wall during a game of tag before wrestling even started. Powell called to tell me to get to the high school right away and take him to the emergency room. Later that night, Powell called to check on him.
“Let me talk to him,” he said. “I feel so bad.”
In a photo in his bedroom, Weldon is wearing his blue-and-orange singlet, still donning the blue plastic headgear, just having leapt off the mat into Powell’s arms after winning a key match at state in February 2007. He is shining with sweat and
Thankfully, that equation got intensely more complicated with each passing moment of their lives. The world began to fill them up; it was no longer that simple equation of two. I would never step back in time to that era, not even for a millisecond, nor do I miss it. But it was disorienting years later knowing that each son got on the scale every day before and after practice, trying to get smaller and weigh less, and working that hard to make a certain wrestling weight. But it is what they did. They did it for themselves, for the team, yes. It was about asserting self-control. Yet, a side effect of all the training and making weight was earning the respect of Coach Powell. They did not want to disappoint him.
4
Coach
----
2003–2009
I called Coach Mike Powell and asked him to help. I had the high school head wrestling coach on speed dial, as did most parents of wrestlers on the team, all of the wrestlers, and many of the wrestling alums. By 2007, he had been Weldon’s coach for the last three of four years, and Brendan’s for the last year. A few nights earlier Brendan had pulled a stupid teenage stunt and I was at the end of my mother rope. It had been eleven years since my divorce, and about that long since I was able to ask for any paternal backup. Besides, their father had been living in Europe for three years by then.
“I’ll drive over in about an hour to talk to him,” Powell offered. “Have Colin there too. He should hear this.”
When Powell—that’s what we called him around our house, just one word like Cher, Madonna, Elvis, or Usher—arrived at our house that June night in 2007, straight from a workout, he asked for a glass of water.
“Don’t hug me, I’m sweaty,” he said when I answered the door.
Weldon and I sat on the couch with Colin. Powell was perched on the edge of the red Chinese Chippendale chair; Brendan sat across from him in a matching chair. Although he was in his early thirties, Powell looked at least ten years younger—baby-faced with dark eyes underneath wire-rimmed glasses, sporting a dark mustache and goatee. On his head were outbursts of jet-black hair; it had grown out since he shaved his head bald with the team just before Thanksgiving—an annual team ritual that made for rotten family holiday photos. The wrestling season haircut is why we posed for holiday pictures in the summer.
Powell talked for close to an hour, his voice deep and low, forceful but not punitive, looking directly at Brendan. And Brendan looked straight at him and stayed silent, nodding, listening, not lowering his eyes or walking away, the way he did when I confronted him. With Powell it was eye-to-eye.
“It doesn’t matter in the end what kind of wrestler you are,” he told Brendan. “It matters what kind of man you are.” He paused. “I love you no matter if you win or not. But the point is to be a good man.”
And then he left.
“Good to see you in practice,” Powell wrote on a brochure for wrestling camp he sent to Colin as an eighth grader when he worked out with the team off-season.
Colin broke his collarbone on the first night of that summer’s wrestling camp; a much heavier boy slammed into him against the wall during a game of tag before wrestling even started. Powell called to tell me to get to the high school right away and take him to the emergency room. Later that night, Powell called to check on him.
“Let me talk to him,” he said. “I feel so bad.”
In a photo in his bedroom, Weldon is wearing his blue-and-orange singlet, still donning the blue plastic headgear, just having leapt off the mat into Powell’s arms after winning a key match at state in February 2007. He is shining with sweat and
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