Free Takedown by Rich Wallace Page A

outsmarting you by a mile.”
    “I’m smart,” Donald mumbled.
    “That’s nice,” Coach said sarcastically. “But it doesn’t mean you know what you’re doing yet.”
    Donald and Tavo circled around each other, hands up and bodies leaning slightly forward. Tavo threw out a quick hand and Donald flinched, but Coach told him to stay low.
    And quick as a flash Tavo was on him again, his hands locked behind Donald’s left knee. Donald felt himself being lifted, and Tavo’s shoulder was jamming into his ribs. He grabbed Tavo’s back with one hand and tried to unclench the grip with the other, but suddenly both feet were in the air. He hit the mat hard. In a matter of seconds he’d been pinned for the fifth time.
    Tavo stood quickly and reached down to give Donald a hand. But Donald looked away and ignored the hand. “I don’t need your help,” he said.
    “Oh, no?” Tavo grinned confidently.
    “No. And you won’t be smiling when I knock you flat.”
    “As if that’ll ever happen.”
    Donald didn’t have a chance to reply. “Line up!” Coach called. “The fun starts now.”
    Donald joined the others in a straight line against the wall.
    “What now?” asked Mario, tugging on Donald’s scrawny arm.
    Donald turned and shrugged. Mario was one of the few kids here who was shorter than Donald, but he was stockier, so they weighed about the same. His dark curly hair was matted to his forehead with sweat.
    “Some new form of torture,” Donald whispered.
    Coach was looking over the thirty or so wrestlers, sizing them up with a smug smile. He was young—three years earlier he’d still been wrestling for the college team at Montclair State—and had the build of a solid 140-pounder.
    “Nobody said this would be easy, right?” Coach said. “You new guys are getting a taste of how tough this sport is. You can’t even begin to be a good wrestler until you get into shape. The whole key is conditioning. Without that, you’re nothing.”
    Coach pointed to Kendrick, a quiet newcomer to Hudson City who sat next to Donald in English class. “What’s your favorite sport?” he asked.
    Kendrick looked around and scrunched up his mouth before answering. “Wrestling?”
    “Is that a question or a statement?”
    “A statement, I guess.”
    “Good answer.”
    Now Coach looked at Donald. “What’s your least favorite sport?”
    Donald put a finger to his chest as he asked weakly, “Me?”
    “Yeah, you.”
    At this point Donald could have said “wrestling” and he wouldn’t have been lying. But he said “track,” which would have been true any other time. His best friend Manny Ramos was a standout distance runner, but Donald had wanted no part of that sport, despite Manny’s frequent urging to join him at it.
    Coach’s smile got broader. “That’s too bad,” he said, “because guess what? Wrestlers run their butts off.”
    Coach made a circular motion with his hand. “Laps around the gym,” he said. “A nice steady pace. We’re not racing here, just staying in motion.”
    There was a collective groan from the group, but all of them started jogging. The gym was small and the corners were tight, but the jogging did seem easier to Donald than all those calisthenics.
    That changed in a hurry when Coach gave his next directive. “Every time I blow my whistle, I want you all to drop and give me five push-ups. Then pop up and get right back to the running. Start now.” And he blew his whistle.
    Donald dropped with the others and managed the five push-ups, feeling the strain all the way from his shoulders down to his fingers.
    Why am I doing this? he wondered.
    He kept wondering that for fifteen more minutes as they alternated running with push-ups. But when the session finally ended and he looked around at the exhausted wrestlers making their way to the locker room, he couldn’t help but feel more than a little bit proud to be one of them.

2
    Stepping Up
    E verything in the locker room was painted