LJ wrestling: 128-pounder against the world

Elliot Austin (in black singlet, center right) faces off
against opponent under domed Holtville High
ceiling Friday on day one.
(Photo by Ed Piper)

By Ed Piper

La Jolla assistant Chuck Pieritz had an interesting observation about the training regimen of the Vikings' top wrestler, senior Elliot Austin at 128 pounds.

"He (Austin) doesn't have any partner to go against in practice," commented Pieritz, himself a former high school and college standout, as team members stood in the staging room inside the Holtville High School gymnasium complex, at midday Sat., Jan. 27, of a two-day tournament. "He has to go against the coaches, because there isn't somebody who can compete with him."

"If he had a teammate to practice against everyday, he'd beat the whole lot of them," the barrel-chested Viking coach said. "A lot of these other guys (surveying athletes from other schools in the room) have someone else to work with."

It's not a sad commentary, it's just a fact, as head coach Kellen Delaney commented over the weekend: "It's the ebb-and-flow of a program," where some years there are more wrestlers and more talent, and other years less. Wrestlers don't transfer into La Jolla, and, as the saying goes, it is what it is.

But Delaney also told his team after a recent dual meet at Cathedral Catholic High: "There's not a team getting a higher technical level of training from its coaches." In other words, nothing in the regimen the LJHS coaching staff is providing falls short of what each individual wrestler needs to learn to excel. The only thing to add: practice and mental toughness.

The Viking wrestling program reached its most recent pinnacle with Western League championships five years ago behind present JV assistant Harry Wilson, Timmy Cundiff, and others. But since then, it has been a rebuild project, many of those stalwarts seniors who graduated.

"He could go on to wrestle in college, definitely," Delaney said of his star 128-pounder earlier this season. Said Pietritz Saturday, "College coaches will be looking at him. He has the work ethic, the mentality."

But in being a standout with no peers near him, Austin labors against a handicap, and that is the lack of in-practice rivals who can help him anticipate new challenges and work to fill any blind spots in his overall game.

One of the qualities Pieritz considers an essential for a wrestler to succeed is teachability. "That is hard to accept criticism," he said. "Not everyone can do it." But Austin has it, and has maximized his growth since he entered the Viking wrestling program as a sophomore, with six years experience in karate.

Some of the skills transferred over from martial arts. The rest was a growth process. A comment he made after losing a narrow 4-1 match to Ivan Miramontes in the consolation semifinals at Holtville was, "When I'm behind like that, I have to learn how not to react" and think negatively. Replied Pieritz, "Find a way to overcome that."

It makes one think of cognitive behavioral therapy. CBT is practical: Identify a need, find a changed behavior to take care of it, and practice the new behavior. This sounds like the exchange between wrestler and coach in the staging room right after the bout: Area of need identified. Find a solution. Use it.

"At his level," said Pieritz during the Holtville weekend of Austin, "it's all what's in his head. The physical is all there. The technique is there. It's what he believes about himself."