Wrestler’s life chronicled for documentary

By RYAN SCHUSTER, Californian staff writer
e-mail: [email protected]

Kenji Porter has become accustomed to being on camera.

Gary Bailos, Porter’s coach at Harvard-Westlake, has followed the 189-pounder’s every move the last four years for a documentary he is making on his experiences coaching high school wrestling.

“At first it was a little bit weird, coach always following me around with a camera, “Porter said. “But it kind of helps to chronicle where I started off. I can always look over my matches. That’s never a problem.”

Bairos is an actor/screenwriter and a walk-on coach at Harvard-Westlake, a small elite academic school in Studio City.

He shoots all the video. His small stipend for coaching wrestling doesn’t come close to defraying the team’s travel costs and expenses for taping the documentary, which he pays for out of his own pocket.

But his biggest challenge might be teaching wrestling to the country club set.

“It’s just been a challenge teaching those types of kids wrestling, “said Bairos, who wrestled at Arizona State. “That’s what the documentary is sort of about. They’re not necessarily from that kind of background. It’s a very rich school. But we’re trying to get them to understand wrestling. They love water polo and tennis and all those sports. But we’re trying to get them interested in wrestling. This will help.”

Porter finished fifth at 189 pounds at the State Wrestling Championships at Rabobank Arena on Saturday after going 5-2 in the tournament.

He is the first two-time Southern Section divisional champion since 1998.

If Harvard-Westlake isn’t your traditional high school wrestling program, Porter isn’t your average high school wrestler.

Porter, who scored a 1390 on his SAT, is considering attending Columbia and New York University.

He carries a 4.2 grade point average. He is taking four advanced placement classes and an honors class in addition to a normal class at Harvard-Westlake.

Porter, who described himself as “pudgy “as a freshman, toned up and shed 20 pounds in the offseason, going from 215 pounds last year to 189 this season.

“The documentary has really helped me to track my thoughts, “Porter said. “Memory is selective. You remember what you want and how you want. But when you see it on video, it’s like, ‘Wow, I really was a wuss!'”

Not anymore.

He entered the state meet ranked sixth in the state this year, but like any good underdog, Porter persevered. He rebounded from losses to Bakersfield High’s Jake Varner and Elk Grove’s John Drake on Saturday to win his fifth-place match by a pin.

He is the only Harvard-Westlake wrestler to advance to state this year.

By comparison, state team champion Poway High had wrestlers at state in 12 of 14 weight classes.

“It’s just a challenge, “Bairos said. “Most of the teams we go up against have 100 kids on their team. We have nine in our room. We won’t be winning the state team title anytime soon. But maybe we’ll get individuals here.”

Harvard-Westlake’s nine wrestlers are not enough to fill out a full varsity squad.