Grabbing the spotlight
Saturday, February 12, 2005
By GREGORY SCHUTTA
STAFF WRITER
The lights blink out in the tiny gym as the ominous dinging that marks the theme from “Halloween “blares from the speakers. A hulking, hooded figure steps out of the darkness. He stands motionless in the shadows at the corner of the wrestling mat.
You can’t see the scowl on the face of Hackensack heavyweight Eric Sewell, but you know it’s there. He high-fives each of his fellow seniors, who race out of the dark one at a time, synchronized with the music as they run laps around the mat.
When the song hits its crescendo, the rest of the team races out to join Sewell and the seniors to finish warm-ups in the bright light that rings the wrestling mat. The capacity crowd, already whipped into a frenzy, creates a deafening roar by stomping its feet on the well-worn bleachers.
Wrestling may be the purest of high school sports. One-on-one. No helmet. No stick. No ball. Yet, to attract athletes and fans, a little marketing doesn’t hurt.
Programs from Pequannock to Lyndhurst are turning to music and light shows as a motivator, an intimidator and even a recruiting tool. “It gets us pumped up, “the 5-foot-11, 265-pound Sewell said. “It gets the crowd going. And it gets the other bench looking and wondering, ‘What are they doing?’ The lights go off and only one guy is coming out. Where is everybody else?”
When John Stallone took over the Hackensack program in the early 1990s, his first order of business was to take the dual matches out of the huge upstairs gym and move them into the cramped downstairs gym, where a crowd of 100 can sound like 1,000. He also changed the starting time from 5 to 7 p.m. The Comets also beefed up their concession stand and used the money raised to buy the mat light, allowing the wrestlers to compete under a spotlight in the darkened gym.
“The joke around here is that people come for dinner and stay for the match, “Stallone said. “We try to make it a complete event. We’re trying to sell the sport, to the fans and the athletes. It’s a difficult sport to do. We want our junior wrestlers to come to our matches and think, ‘I can’t wait until I get to go out there and wrestle in high school.’Ÿ”
Sewell, a Division I-caliber linebacker, and teammate Jordan Chacon were among those Stallone managed to sell on the sport.
“I’ve been around Hackensack wrestling since guys like [State champ] Rich Bitetto were wrestling, “Chacon said. “When we were in junior wrestling, we would stand on the floor and create a tunnel for the varsity wrestlers to come out through. All I wanted to do was wrestle in high school under that light.”
“It makes you feel like you’re in a pit and all eyes are on you, “Sewell said. “That’s what wrestling is about, you alone out there against the other guy. When you put somebody to his back, the place just goes crazy. You can’t see anybody, but you can feel the vibrations.”
Stallone first got the idea for the mat light when he saw one being used at Fort Lee.
“It pumps up the crowd, and sometimes the crowd could be the difference between a win or a loss, “Fort Lee coach Alex Almeyda said. “With the house lights off, it creates the feel of a boxing arena. Wrestling has taken a big hit. A lot of schools out there can’t field their own teams. The mat lamp helps sell the sport. It creates the feeling of a main event.”
Other schools have followed suit, wrestling under a spotlight or, like Hasbrouck Heights/Wood-Ridge, moving into a smaller gym for the atmosphere of a capacity crowd.
“The crowd is almost on top of you, “Aviators coach Mike Scuilla said. “The kids wrestle better in an intense atmosphere. That’s the atmosphere we’re trying to create.”
Pequannock has taken things a step further, running out to a strobe light for its warm-ups and wrestling under a mat light.
“The strobe light just adds to the atmosphere, “Panther Joe Barnicle said of the light, which creates a slow-motion effect during warm-ups. “It really gets you going. The mat light makes it feel like you’re in an arena and you’re the show. It’s just you out there. That’s what makes wrestling unique.”
Music first made its way into North Jersey wrestling in the mid-1970s when Emerson began coming out to “Born to be Wild “by Steppenwolf, and Paramus, under then-coach Bill Savage, adopted Jethro Tull’s “Locomotive Breath. “Amazingly, both schools continue to come out to the same songs nearly 30 years later.
“Other teams try to come out to it, but we feel like it’s our song, “Paramus senior Nick Buldo said of “Locomotive Breath.” “It’s a crowd-pleaser, and it always gets us pumped up.”
“I think we were the first team in Bergen County to come out to music in 1976, “said Stan Woods, the longtime coach of Emerson/Park Ridge. “We wrestled against another team that did it and my kids thought that was great. When we were trying to come up with a song to run out to, one of the choices was “Magic Carpet Ride. “But I leaned toward “Born to be Wild “because it’s fast and it gets the guys hyped up.”
The idea spread in 1977 when the Cavos moved a major showdown with Pascack Hills from their small gym to the bigger gym in Paramus.
“We came out to our music, and it was incredible, “Woods said. “The gym was packed with 1,800 people and everybody loved it. We are very proud of our tradition.”
The Cavos are the only team that currently comes out to “Born to be Wild. “But “Locomotive Breath “has become a staple at wrestling matches over the years, along with songs such as “Lunatic Fringe “by Red Rider, the feature song in the wrestling movie “Vision Quest. “Other favorites include “Crazy Train “by Ozzy Osbourne, any songs by heavy metal groups such as Metallica, AC/DC and Pantera, and relative newcomers such as “Down with the Sickness “by Disturbed.
“The kids really get pumped up by ‘Crazy Train,’Ÿ “Lodi coach Nick DiDomenico said of the song that begins with maniacal laughter from Osbourne.
All have been eclipsed in recent years by “Welcome to the Jungle “by Guns N’ Roses and “Hells Bells “by AC/DC.
“You look for something that starts off slow and picks up after about 20 seconds, “said Chacon, who has been picking Hackensack’s music since his freshman year. “The music is as much for the crowd as it is for us. It really gets everybody pumped up.”
In many places, the song itself has become the tradition. New Milford has been coming out to “Welcome to the Jungle “since 1997. Demarest has rekindled the tradition of playing Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.”
“When the team was real good in the 1990s, that’s what they came out to, “Demarest coach John Reese said. “The kids wanted to play the same song to bring back the tradition.”
“I think it’s unique in high school sports, “Lyndhurst/North Arlington coach Darius Hughes said. “It’s just fun.”
“When I was in high school, we ran out to The Who’s “Baba O’Riley “all four years, “Almeyda said. “Now if I’m driving in the car and I hear that song, the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. People who know me think I’m crazy. But how can you not remember the feeling that you had when you ran out to that same song for four years?”
The music also becomes a source of pride. NBIL rivals Fair Lawn and Northern Highlands, which is coached by former Fair Lawn wrestler Rick Babbits, are among the three local teams that run out to “Renegade “by Styx.
“They stole it from us, “said Fair Lawn’s Dillon Landi, who made sure his friends on Northern Highlands knew about his displeasure.
Superstition also plays its role.
“We come out to ‘Thunderstruck’ by AC/DC, “Dale Fava of Don Bosco said. “We came out once to “Welcome to the Jungle, “but we lost. So we went back.”
Music, however, isn’t for everybody.
“Sometimes it seems a little showy, “said coach Chris Marren of Saddle Brook/Glen Rock, which doesn’t come out to music. “I think you’ve got to be really good to do it. Maybe in a really big match or in a big situation.”
“It’s not part of our program, “Hawthorne coach Bob Pasquale said. “We let our actions on the mat speak for themselves.”
That doesn’t mean teams without music don’t have their own traditions.
“All our kids clap their hands in unison like a heartbeat, “Eastside coach Raoul Guzman said. “We want to keep it old school and keep the kids focused on the task at hand.”
“Everybody’s got their own unique thing, “Buldo of Paramus said. “Hackensack’s got its light. At High Point [Sussex County], they do back flips. We’ve got ‘Locomotive Breath.’Ÿ”
Staff writers Darren Cooper and Joe Duffy contributed to this article.
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