Referee Yagla recovers from frightening illness

Former NCAA champion at Iowa overcomes hepatitis to return to mat.

By DAN McCOOL
REGISTER STAFF WRITER

Wrestling official Chuck Yagla said he would like to have an NCAA Division I wrestling tournament as good as last season’s.

The 51-year old Yagla, though, would prefer to not experience the same drama leading up to this season’s event on March 16 in Oklahoma City.

The former two-time NCAA champion at Iowa – and, in 1976, the Hawkeyes’ first outstanding wrestler of the NCAA tournament – was diagnosed with medication-induced hepatitis in the fall of 2004.

Yagla said the culprit was likely a non-steroid, anti-inflammatory drug he took for 15 years to alleviate pain and swelling of a herniated disc in his back.

By the time he returned to officiating last January – Yagla’s weight dropped 20 pounds to close to his 150-pound collegiate wrestling weight. His skin had the jaundiced yellow tint his wife, Sarah, first noticed in his eyes.

“The hardest part for me was I got so weak, I got to where I couldn’t even do one push-up, “said Yagla, whose strength helped him earn a berth on the freestyle team for the 1980 Olympics that the United States boycotted. “It really got depressing on (the strength) side of it. One thing I always did over the years in the morning was to do push-ups. Not to be able to do one, this was crazy.”

The doctors never said he might die, but he was getting sicker while awaiting word on the results of a liver biopsy.

“I was thinking, ‘Gee, this might be the end,’ ” Yagla said. “You have your faith in God and I have a very supportive wife. Once I got those results back and they were pretty sure it was nothing but that medication, that I would get better and it would just take time.”

Yagla said the back is pretty good now, but he can not take ibuprofen on the tough days. He takes a pill for the pain, and works out two to three times per week to strengthen the back.

Yagla began his 21st year of officiating with last week’s Northern Iowa-Iowa meet. His schedule takes him from Iowa Conference gymnasiums to NCAA Division I arenas, sometimes in a week. He still looks lean enough to wrestle off for a 157-pound spot.

Yagla wanted to work his typical 20-25 dates last season, but he had to erase his schedule for November and December.

“I felt fresher at the end than I normally did, “Yagla said, “and I felt like I had the best national tournament I ever had, as far as an official. This season, I purposely didn’t schedule much in November or December.”

He will be back in his gray officiating shirt and black pants for the National Duals Jan. 14-15 at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls. Yagla could have been working the Midlands Open in Evanston, Ill. Dec. 29-30, but he has more important work on the opening day. His first grandson, Justin Gethman, was born Dec. 29, 2004, so there is a big birthday party.

Yagla will get to work off the cake by keeping busy in the next three months.

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