By MARCIA C. SMITH
The Orange County Register
SANTA ANA – Jesse Ruiz lurches up and back, bounding around a white circle for a raging warrior’s dance. His arms shake loose like wet linguini. His head and mountainous afro swivel wildly above Incredible Hulk shoulders.
Then Ruiz freezes with his soft-soled high-tops jammed into the blood-red mat, his 5-foot-11, 184-pound body pitched forward and his massive hands, which can palm skulls, raised hip-high, ready to wring dry a soaking dishcloth of an opponent last Monday night in a steamy Santa Ana College gym.
Ruiz, 19, fixes his eyes on the pupils of barrel-chested Brian Judd, who stands a headlock away with a rapid heart beating to break free of its rib cage. Nostrils flaring, Ruiz envisions knocking Judd into submission in this brutal ballet of a sport that, for many of these wrestlers, tests the strength of not just the body but the soul.
If you knew what some of these Santa Ana College athletes survived “the rough neighborhoods, the empty wallets, the schooldays in too-small shoes and second-hand blue jeans and the doubters “you’d realize they wrestle for everything.
They’ve put a stranglehold on promising futures, balancing junior-college studies, part-time jobs and 20-hour- a-week practice schedules for a little-known community college program coming off its best season in 30 years with its second place at last December’s state meet.
Ruiz, one of the 2004 team’s five All-Americans, sleeps in a garage of a three-bedroom Santa Ana home. His mattress and box spring lie on concrete. A framed poster from a high school wrestling competition decorates the wall, and his trophies line the top of a dresser he bought at Goodwill.
“My parents came here from Mexico hoping that my sisters and I could have a better life, “Ruiz says. “Thanks to wrestling, I have that chance.”
More than a dozen universities, including Cal State Fullerton, Missouri and Arizona State, have offered the sophomore scholarships. Wrestling powerhouse Hofstra is flying him to Hempstead, N.Y., for a visit Monday.
Ruiz will get the college education his father, a handyman, and mother, who assembled electronic circuit boards in a factory, never had.
But for now, Ruiz must face 174-pound All-American Judd, who lowers his shoulders and plows forward to take Ruiz out at the knees. Bodies collide and crash to the mat with a heavy thud that sounds like an SUV knocked off its jack.
Ruiz quickly rises to his knees, throws his arms around Judd’s torso, presses his chest against Judd’s back and drives him into the floor. Wincing, gasping, his legs pedaling for traction, Judd tries to squirm free of Ruiz’s no-mercy hold.
This wasn’t the first time Judd, 21, of Tustin, lost his freedom. In August 2002, he rolled through a Santa Ana stop sign, got pulled over by police, arrested for drunken driving and thrown in jail.
He says he has wrestled with alcoholism since age 16, waking up every morning seeking the spirits to numb him. His parents left him in jail for two weeks, despite his pleading.
“I’m glad they did it, “says Judd, who, through wrestling’s discipline, embraced sobriety and shares his lessons as a Tustin High wrestling coach. “Different things motivate the wrestlers here. Our strength runs deeper than muscle.”
The wrestlers’ personal sagas keep Coach Vince Silva returning to the program, even though his private-investigation firm demands an 80-hour workweek. His sixth season begins next month, alongside lead assistant coach and Santa Ana police officer Vito Becerra.
Silva used to be just like the grapplers in the 18 circles in the 30-by-60-foot sauna of a room, “a lost cause. “He grew up poor in Santa Maria, raised by a mother who cut broccoli in a packing plant and taught him never to rely on others, “not even to borrow sugar from the neighbors, “he says.
Silva, despite warnings from cautious coaches, left everything he knew to walk on at Oklahoma State, the nation’s top wrestling program. He made the team as a sophomore, became a senior All- American, earned an economics degree and now has his name engraved on the school’s Heritage Hall.
“I was Cinderella, “says Silva, 40, of Tustin. “Now, I look at my team of Cinderellas. I see what they’re up against, what they’re fighting, and I’m there to tell them to keep going. These kids need me, and to tell you the truth, I need them too.”
In a sweaty gray T-shirt, black shorts and black wrestling shoes, Silva paces between the sparring kids he has seen grow from skinny to strong through training.
Run the perimeter of the school, then put a teammate on your back and carry him up the stairs of the five-story Dunlap Hall, for starters. Sprint a 200-yard lap, then do 15 push-ups, then do it again.
Silva’s killer workouts didn’t turn away 2003 wrestlers Jimmy and Alex Becerra, brothers who shared a 2-bedroom Santa Ana home with a dozen other people before landing Lindenwood University scholarships and helping it to a 2004 NAIA title.
The rigors helped bulk up Bazen Gabrakirstos, whose parents fled war and famine in Ethiopia. He went from a 150-pounder who didn’t own a pair of sneakers in 2002 to a 165-pound starter with three scholarships offers.
The program, which can’t recruit beyond its community, builds its own blue chips and relies on Silva’s reputation and former wrestlers such as Juan Pacho to attract talent. Pacho persuaded Danny Melendez and Jon Keene to return for their 2004 All-America seasons, saying, “Santa Ana’s going to be really special some day.”
Melendez, a thick-bodied 197-pounder, left the program after 2001 to run his father’s building-maintenance company. Keene, a quick-footed 157-pounder, took 2003 off to attend firefighter academy.
Pacho was right about the team’s promise. Sadly, a fatal October car crash prevented him from seeing the team come close to its 1974 title. And to every meet, the team took him in spirit, hanging up his smiling photograph beneath the message, “In loving memory of Juan Pacho.”
“Seeing what my teammates have been through provides a lot of inspiration, “says Keene, 22, who tattooed his right leg with Jesus above a heart and his chest with muscle cars and the words, “Driven by Faith.”
“We’ve all come together at a time in our lives to be on this team, and together we’ve done something special.”
In these circles, wrestlers are equal competitors, paired by pounds. Class, race, ethnicity and wealth carry no weight against brute strength and a survivor’s soul.
Still battling, Ruiz and Judd remain tangled tight, limbs locked, with Judd refusing to get pinned. Straining ligaments and blood vessels bulge from their necks. Sweat drips from their foreheads.
Neither wants to give in. Neither wants to give up. Just as in life.
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