Worth the weight:

“I like the body fat testing,” said Rock Falls coach and 1994 Rock Falls grad A.J. Buser said. “A kid can only go down so far. You won’t hear as much about the dramatic weight cutting.”

The horror stories from yesteryear just don’t happen that often anymore, according to today’s coaches  – whose memories are still filled with some scary ones.

“I had a friend in high school cut from 190 to 145,” Buser said. “He looked bad and he wrestled bad. There’s a fine line between cutting weight and starving.”

Montgomery cited an instance from his coaching days that he did not become aware of until well after the fact.

“I had a wrestler that had a teammate intentionally bloody his nose so he could bleed off some weight,” he said.

Montgomery is pleased that things have changed.

“It’s good to have something in place now,” he said. “It’s healthier and safer. It takes some decisions out of the coaches hands. Sometimes that’s good.”

It took a tragedy, actually three tragedies, to bring significant change. In 1997, three college wrestlers, aged 19-22, died in a one-month span. The deaths – from heat stroke, cardiac arrest and kidney failure – were the result of drastic weight-cutting measures.

Don Mekeel, a local wrestling referee for more than 35 years who competed at Dixon High School and coached at Sterling from 1994 to 2003, remembers that month well.

“That brought it all to the limelight,” said Mekeel, who runs the local Mat Men youth program. “It’s surprising it didn’t happen earlier.

“The NCAA made some decisions for the betterment of the sport,” he continued. “High school followed. I’m glad to see the precautions that are being taken. Parents can rest assured that their kids are in good hands.”

Bishop, who was a wrestler at the time of the deaths, admitted that his own experience with weight cutting was a bit overboard.

“When I was in high school, the day before the Dvorak Tournament [in Machesney Park] I was 10 pounds overweight,” he said. “I made weight doing it the wrong way. It wasn’t the smart thing to do.”

Bishop’s Sterling High wrestlers are trying to do things the right way.

“I started at heavyweight this year and had to lose 30 pounds,” said Sterling freshman Curtis Lilly, who competes for the varsity team at 215 pounds. “I just ate right. I feel light compared to where I was.

“I ate fruit and yogurt for breakfast, for lunch I ate salad, and for dinner I ate Lean Cuisine meals. And, I did a lot of running. I’m used to eating a lot, so it was different. Some people think wrestlers have to starve themselves, but if you just eat right you’ll be fine.”

Sterling junior 189-pounder Tyler Garcia is on the opposite side of the weight issue.

“I wrestle up a weight, so it’s easier for me,” he said. “I do have to watch what I eat. I don’t pig out. I don’t eat fast food. I feel good when I wrestle. I don’t run out of stamina or strength.

“You need to eat a lot of fruit, drink a lot of water, and eat some protein about twice a day so you don’t run out of energy. It’s better to eat smaller portions throughout the day than a few big ones. I usually eat about 2 1/2 meals a day.”

Garcia did have to cut weight in the past.

“My freshman year I dropped from about 155 to 145,” he said. “I had to drop about 7 or 8 pounds in one day. It was a lot of running, and I watched what I ate.”

Garcia is glad he hasn’t had to endure any wild weight cutting.

“Wearing so many layers of clothes that you sweat just standing there is pretty ridiculous,” he said. “I’m lucky I don’t have to do that.”

Sterling junior 125-pounder Jordan Lopez said he tries to maintain his weight.

“I don’t overeat,” he said. “I can eat what I want. I just eat smaller portions and not too many sweets or fats.”

Buser remembers an example of the extreme yo-yoing that some wrestlers have in their eating and weight loss habits.

“I had a kid put on 14 pounds in one day,” he said. “He weighed in that morning at 152. We went to a buffet later that day and he ate and drank, and ate and drank, and ate and drank. When we got back he weighed 166.”

Bishop is doing what he can to make the weight-cutting situation better.

“The biggest thing is I try to discourage too much weight cutting,” he said. “At a certain point it’s too much. I try to tell the kids not to yo-yo their weight. You have to eat to lose weight. I like to push five small meals a day.”

Mekeel pointed out a weight loss success story from the tail end of his coaching career.

“I had a young man that wrestled in the 215-pound class whose body fat test said he could wrestle at 152,” he said. “He made it his goal to do that, and he did. And, he’s kept the weight down ever since.”

By the numbers

285: The heaviest weight class for high-schoolers in Illinois

103: The lightest weight class in Illinois

78: Number of pounds lost in 2 months by high-school-aged Rich Montgomery

14: Weight classes in IHSA competition

7: The lowest body-fat percentage a boy wrestler is allowed to have in IHSA competition

3: College wrestlers who died in 1 month in 1997 because of dangerous weight-cutting methods

1.5: Maximum body-weight percentage an IHSA wrestler can lose in 1 week