Training-BHS Style

As you've all probably heard, wrestling is the world's toughest sport, both mentally and physicly. There are a lot of rumors that swarm the halls of Barrington as to what goes in a wrestling practice, with Coach Perolin behind the reigns. This post should clear up any questions you could possibly have, and enlighten the world as to what truly goes down at a BHS wrestling practice...

We arrive into the wrestling gym at promptly 3 o clock. You can feel the 105 degree hit you in the face like a fog machine as you enter. We put our shoes and headgears on, and prepare for the journey we are about to endure. If anybody shows up late, we take turns wrestling Coach Strobl 30 minutes each after, practice, which is never pretty. The man is the Chuck Norris of the wrestling world. Anyway, the team circles up and we do our warm up routine of jogging outside to the track, and then jogging back. Coach Perolin makes this a very difficult task by putting a 75 pound log on each of our backs. If we do not make it back in time, then we must do it 27 more times. After our log jog, the real practice begins. We partner up and drill hard for 47 1/2 minutes straight. If Coach feels we are not going hard enough, we start the practice over with the log jogs. After the drilling, we must do a rope climbing exercise. This is no ordinary rope climb, however. After we get our feet off the ground, Coach lights the bottom of the rope on fire, and we must reach the top and let go before we are covered in third degree burns. Beau Conrad, or whatever 103 pound girl we find to replace him, stands at the bottom to catch us. Beau must then run to the other end of the wrestling gym and back in under 20 seconds, and the weight classes keep rotating. If we do not make time on this, we are forced to drive rusty, metal stakes deep into our forearms and are not allowed to scream. If we scream, then Coach threatens to put a David Hasslehoff CD over the loudspeaker, but thank God it hasn't happenned yet. After we complete our rope climbing exercise, we must live wrestle some more, until someone vomits. Once somebody vomits, which usually takes about 2-3 hours, the hard part begins. We must do sprints the length of the wrestling gym for an hour with 25 pound plates strapped to each of our calves (just ask Bamboo how he got those masculine calves.) When the sprints are completed, we go into the weight room for our creatine chug. We all chug a pound of creatine in under 30 seconds, then begin our lift. After we finish lifting the actual weights, we must each do 200 push ups with somebody on their back. When those are done, it's 60 more one armed, Rocky-style push ups. When our weightlift is finally completed, the team building/toughness exercises begin. Each of us takes turns standing on a wall, and each wrestler gets 3 punches to the abdomen. This increases toughness tremendously. After the wall punches, we meditate for 20 minutes, to clear our body and mind. When our souls are through being cleansed, the team bear is brought into the wrestling gym. This bear, cleverly named "Barry," is a vicious grizzly that Coach Strobl tamed with 3 toothpicks and a hair brush in the Montana wilderness. Strobl commands the bear to attack, and we all must use the power of teamwork to subdue this majestic killing machine. Usually Beau Conrad is used as a distraction while Anoosh chokes the bear, but Beau only suffers minor cuts and is usually released from intensive care in a week or two. This is when our cool down exercises begin. All of the Varsity members sing an a ca pella randition of Billy Joel's "For the Longest Time." led by Gabes. After that we do some finger stretches, jumping jacks that spell out "Waukegan," and hit the road to prepare for tomorrow.

I will not discuss what happens in the locker room/showers, but I will give you three words: "Mike Pollack", "SketchPad", and "Pencil." Take it any way you want.

Our camera crew also has a very demanding practice, as well. Nick Deuele works on his camera angles and movement 23 hours a day. The other hour is spent on extension cord rolling, and nursing his horrid "shin splints." Godspeed, Nick, Godspeed.

And of course Jeff Sayre spends this whole time in the weight room.

So now you know what a Barrington wresltling practice is REALLY like. If you have doubts about any of the things stated in this piece, feel free to come into the wrestling gym any time you like...at your own risk. Please bring a pen to sign our medical release form and a neckbrace and wheelchair are recommended, but not required. I'll see you all next season....won't I?