I was asked to wrestle after the season started in my senior year 1971. The heavyweight weight class was available with no one big enough to do it .I was an ok football player playing defensive and offensive tackle on the varsity for 3 years. I never considered wrestling and had no experience. How hard could 6 minutes be? Quite a few of my good friends were on the team and they were having a good year. I got beat up pretty well in practice by guys like Ralph Terrel who was smaller than me but was very strong and was coming into his own after wrestling for quite a few years. I believe Mr Broderick and Mr. Lauver were the coaches. After a few weeks of practice they had nobody else so they put me in. I think that the weight class was optional at the time and may not have counted in the score. So the big kid from East Quogue is now wrestling. Well I did not do very well and did not get too many matches. As I recall thinking, this sport is HARD. No time to rest like football. No place to hide as it is you and the other guy. Again I do not want to pretend to be a poser as everybody on the team knew the sport and put in their dues over numerous seasons, but I liked it. In a miracle almost as big as the olympic hockey team, I somehow managed to win a match in the leagues and made it into the county tournament. I got killed, but would never give up the experience for the world. I went on to be unlimited for 2 years at Bethany College in West Virginia where I looked up at many lights at numerous small colleges in the area. I found out what unlimited was, as I wrestled some really big guys that made me, at 250 pounds, look very small. I look back at wrestling as something that helped me greatly as an adult. It helped me to stick to something even if it was very hard and discouraging. Working with a small team full of individuals was different from football as it really came down to you to perform. The others on the team could support you, but could do nothing to help once the match started. I did find one good thing about wrestling unlimited in college. On road trips, all teams get meal money. I was one of the few guys that loved this as I never had to make weight and got to enjoy eating as much as I wanted, at the colleges expense, while most of my team mates could not. Looking back, I never could have thought that the 3 years that I participated in this strange sport would have helped me so much, but they did.
Allyn Jackson
Class of 1971
Allyn Jackson
Class of 1971
RSS Feed
