College Wrestling: For God and Country
| 4
|
By Jason Bryant, InterMat
Copyright InterMat Wrestling
http://www.intermatwrestle.com/articles/bryant22.aspx
Santa Ana College's Tom Eaton eyes a California CC title after serving in United States Marine Corps
A talk with Santa Ana College wrestler Tom Eaton sounds like a talk with a wrestling coach when he descibes his old job. Proper positioning, knowing how to take a solid shot, learning the basics and then doing them.
But Eaton wasn't talking about wrestling. He was detailing his days as a sniper in the United States Marine Corps, not his goal of winning a California Community College state championship this season.
“I can see people looking at a sniper and going ‘whoa, that’s really sexy’... but everything that needs to be known to be a sniper, you apply the fundamentals, just like wrestling.”
For Eaton and the rest of the wrestlers in the California system, wrestling season starts now, not in November, with its unique 22-team fall college wrestling league.
There are some personalities in this league, not to mention an abundance of tattoos as well. Then there's Santa Ana's 174-pouner.
Eaton, 28, is a newlywed from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
He’s in his second year at Santa Ana and hoping to improve on last season’s fourth-place finish at the CCC championships at 174 pounds. After seven years in the Marine Corps, he made a return to the wrestling mats last season.
A two-time Iowa state qualifier at 152 and 160 pounds for Cedar Rapids’ Thomas Jefferson High School under Dick Briggs, Eaton developed a reputation for being a scrappy tenacious wrestler. But what Eaton wasn’t tenacious about was schoolwork.
So after high school, Eaton, who joined the United States Marines Corps after graduating from Jefferson in 1997, was deployed to the Pacific Rim four times, the Persian Gulf in 1998, attended different military schools, Army Ranger school and ultimately sniper school.
Serving with the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines Scout Sniper Platoon, Eaton grew up.
“Wrestling compliments and develops character in line and it’s done that for me,” said Eaton and his preparedness for the military.
Stationed out of Camp Pendleton in California, Eaton was circling the globe. But as a sniper, there’s a stigma that goes along with the job. Movies have glorified the role, but Eaton admits when he tells people he was a sniper, the uncomfortable question of kills comes up.
“Everyone asks if you’ve shot anybody,” Eaton said. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve served with a lot of guys that did a lot of great things. I just to bring glory to God and my faith. You’re out there and people’s lives on the line.”
“Snipers don’t win battles, they support grunts,” he continued. “We’re the eyes and ears of battalion commander.”
“Your job is to wait and watch, just keep your discipline. My hats off to the grunts, they are on patrol, putting on countless miles, walking along sides of trucks. My hat goes off to those guys that are going into the buildings while we’re watching from a safe and concealed position,” said Eaton.
“Yeah, a sniper’s real sexy, but once you get down into it, It just seems like it, but it’s a job just like anyone’s doing on the battlefield,” he said.
There was a crossroads for Eaton while he was in the Marine Corps – wrestling or furthering his budding career.
“I’d wrestled some freestyle tournaments, but the Marine Corps structure is mostly Greco-Roman,” he said. “There was a tryout wrestling tournament for the All-Marine team and I’d tried out for the sniper platoon – I chose the sniper platoon.”
While his career as a sniper is behind him, he’s not hiding the fact to others, but constant questions can be a distraction.
“I don’t like to get into it. I don’t care that people know I’m a sniper, rather know people for who I am and judge me for my character.”
It’s the character that Eaton has been developing since graduating from high school, much of it has to do with the balance between the skills wrestling taught him to prepare for the military and how the military taught him to prepare for life.
Never a strong student in high school and the son of two deaf parents, Eaton was dealt an interesting hand. Now, nearly 10 years after graduating from high school, he’s doing something he never thought he’d attempt.
College.
“I looked up to a lot of Army officers who said ‘you’ll do fine in school’,” said Eaton. “I never pictured myself going that route. Through the military I was really inspired to go to school.”
Eaton wasn’t getting too many wrestling offers after graduating from Jefferson as a two-time qualifier with a poor GPA.
“It’s a lot of hard work for me because I never had that academic value transmitted to me, he said. “Wrestling’s what taught me to work hard.”
Another turning point in Eaton’s life is where he points to his faith.
“I became a Christian in 1997 and that right there has really put all the right perspective on everything- wrestling, military, the deaf background,” he said.
Eaton met his new bride, Bri, at a church in San Clemente and the relationship went four years and spanned two deployments before the two tied the knot.
Eaton started at Saddleback Community College, but when he got that wrestling itch, he’d learned of the California Community College wrestling circuit and through the Montgomery GI Bill, he could find a place he wanted to attend and hopefully, wrestle.
“I just needed something to carry me over (after the military) and I loved wrestling. Wrestling is what got me through high school,” he said.
“Wrestling’s something that’s always focused me and honed me. I needed something intense, coming out of a combat zone and getting into training -- it was perfect for me.”
But why not a larger school, perhaps NAIA or Division 2?
“Initially I didn’t know where I stood, I just wanted to give it a go and see how I would do. I’m a lot more mature from where I was in high school,” Eaton said.
“I wanted to see where my performance would change and it has a lot.”
Enter Vince Silva, a two-time All-American at Oklahoma State and the head coach at Santa Ana College.
“Whether it’s because of his military background or not, but he (Eaton) brought a tremendous amount of leadership and intensity,” said Silva.
“He’s very verbal in leading by example,” said Silva. “He’s our hardest worker and he brings a lot to the table in showing the young guys what to do by example and has a very good commanding presence.”
When Eaton showed up at Santa Ana, it turned out to be a blessing. Because the Commission on Athletics (the CCC governing body) has rules preventing coaches from making any contact with an athlete outside of their zone, Eaton made the first contact.
“He filled a void last year and turned out to be one of our superstars. He’s going to be ranked #1 in the state at 174 and last year was in the undisputed toughest weight in the state meet,” said Silva.
Eaton ended last season fourth in the state meet, but Silva said the progress was excellent.
“There were guys that had beaten Tom earlier in the season and he got better, stronger and more technical – something which he needed desperately,” he said.
“He’s not the most talented guy in the room, but his work-ethic and character are phenomenal. It’s a joy to have him in the room,” said Silva.
With a CCC title as an immediate goal, Eaton’s still unsure about his plans to potentially continue on to a four-year college, but for the time being, Eaton is still adjusting to life in California and working for the Orange County Department of Education as an interpreter for the deaf.
Eaton spends time as an assistant coach at University High School up the road in Irvine. The team has 16 deaf wrestlers on its 40-man team.
“The bus in all the deaf kids in the county to this one public high school,” Eaton said about University High. “They have a deaf department and it’s a plus because sign language was my first language.”
Going through speech therapy as a youth was just another hurdle that’s helped mold Eaton into the person he is today. His father is completely deaf and doesn’t speak while his mother is hard of hearing and speaks, but has trouble with some phonics. Eaton said he’d imitate that pattern when he was younger, but the speech classes and social interaction cleared up his speaking. In talking with him, you’d never think otherwise because his articulation is clean and precise.
“Looking back through it all, it’s been a positive,” Eaton said. “It’s taught me to analyze where I’m at and overcome in a way.”
But that desire to wrestle was ingrained from his days growing up in Iowa.
“ Mark Ironside was a senior when I was coming up through the program. His brother Tim was my teammate, that program Dick Briggs and John Hagerty – those guys invested in me and really helped me out. They used wrestling to transmit a hard work ethic and to overcome adversity. It’s been a good ride. I praise God for it all.”
But is a four-year program in the cards?
“I really want to see what kind of offers and opportunities I get,” Eaton said. “I just need to get talked to by some colleges and programs. I’ll be finishing up with a 3.4. I graduated HS with a 1.9. Shows the kind of discipline I have.”
“I want to continue wrestling, but I’m married now. She’s looking to get her teaching credential. If I can figure something out where I can go to school and support both of us and she can go to school,” he said.
Silva thinks Eaton’s desire might be the determining factor.
“In Division I, you really have to like to bang. Tom’s the kind of guy that excels in that area. He loves to bang and get his head beat and black eyes and cauliflower ear. You can’t make a guy love to scrap. You have to put him in there and adapt,” said Silva.
Silva draws comparisons to former Iowa national champion Royce Alger.
“Alger didn’t have all the attributes like the balance and the speed, but it was the style he had -- you can’t do anything with him,” said Silva. “Tom’s like him since he’s stingy and doesn’t give up very much. He might do better than the blue-chipper coming out of JUCO because of his work-ethic.”
So Saturday at Mt. San Antonio, Eaton steps on the mat for his second wrestling season at Santa Ana, hoping for a state title and unsure what his wrestling career will bring him, but confident enough to double-leg any adversity that might come his way.
For more information about California Community College Wrestling, check www.caccwrestling.com
Source
- InterMat Wrestling
- CACCwrestling.com
Date
Thu 09/14/06, 1:05 pm EST
