THE TRIALS... 1976 make the team as a high school senior but knew it would be tough facing the Eastern Europeans and Asians who were so talented in Greco. I now concentrated solely in Greco and kept improving. A couple of my high school wrestling buddies from Illinois were at the Finals Camp Khris and Keith Whelan and Jerry Kelly – and we had a good time wrestling and hanging out together. Coach Jim Peckham was great. He had a lot of common sense and worked you very hard, yet gave you a chance to recover. He participated in all the workouts with us and he was tough. I respected that. Farina’s main competitor, Bill Rosado, was the National AAU champion at 105.5 and was wrestling for Bobby Douglas at Arizona State in ’76. He relates a few stories of his own... I was one of five children born into a Puerto Rican family originally from the Bronx. My dad was a staff sergeant in the Army, stationed in Puerto Rico. He was always telling me ‘don’t let anyone push you around’, so he got me started in judo when I was 11. Judo taught me a lot about combat technique and how to take an opponent’s motion and skillfully use it to my advantage. The following year my dad was transferred to Offut AFB outside Omaha. That’s when I started wrestling – in eighth grade. The next year it was back to Puerto Rico where I was the island champion at 98 pounds. Then we moved to Arizona, where as a junior in 1972 I won the state AA high school tournament at 98 pounds. I also won the AAU Junior National Freestyle championship. During that summer, the coach at the University of Arizona, Bill Nelson, asked me to come over to the University to workout with some other wrestlers. I did and received some excellent training, especially from Dale Brumit who became a good friend. However, Nelson made no mention of recruiting me for the Arizona wrestling team. When I asked him why, he told me, ‘Billy, you are a fine kid and would be an asset anywhere, but you are too small to ever be a college wrestler.’ For my senior year at Tucson Santa-Rita I wrestled up at 112 pounds and made it all the way to the State Finals but lost in overtime. I was crushed. I still hadn’t received any college recruiting 96 Wrestlers At The Trials
THE TRIALS... 1976
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My parents couldn’t be at Brockport because they didn’t have enough money to make the trip. Right after winning the final match I called them and my girlfriend. I was crying. I was really happy, but feeling very alone with no one there to share this exciting moment with me.
– BILL ROSADO
offers. I was feeling left out – a Puerto Rican nomad who wrestled all over the country but couldn’t find a college interested in me. However, the coach at Phoenix Junior College talked to me after the State Tournament and said he’d take me at his school, so that’s where I ended up. Meanwhile, I was doing well in Freestyle back down at 105.5. I went to the World Team Trials and beat Wayne Holmes in two-out-of-three to make the 1974 US team. We went to Istanbul for the Games where I lost both my matches. We wrestled our matches outside in a soccer stadium. It was a pretty bad environment for everyone and the team didn’t do well at all. In 1975 Bobby Douglas was the Arizona State coach and he started talking to me about coming to Arizona State. He told me ‘I am not at all sure you are Division I material, but if you come here and wrestle I will help you become a World and Olympic champion.’ I believed him, except for the DI bit, and enrolled at ASU. A couple years later I proved Coaches Douglas and Nelson wrong when I finished 5th for ASU at 118 pounds in the 1977 NCAAs. In April ’76 I won the National AAUs, defeating Dave Range at 105.5. That qualified me for the Olympic Trials tournament in Cleveland. I was doing fine there until I came up against Bobby Weaver. That match ended quickly. I went in for the takedown, dropped my head and Weaver threw me right on my back with his patented cradle. It was all over. I finished 4th, but at least I qualified for the Camp at Brockport. After the Cleveland tournament I chilled out for awhile at Dale Brumit’s home in Akron. No workouts, just a little running and some meditation. I got my head together and headed out to the
Bill Rosado was pinned by Bobby Weaver at the Cleveland Trials but came back to win the two deciding wrestle-off bouts at Brockport Photograph by Chris Poff, courtesy of Scholastic Wrestling News
DeKalb camp. By the time I got to Brockport, I was pretty focused and confident that I could win. I was in perfect shape and my weight was under control. Douglas was there as my personal coach and in my corner throughout. I beat both Weaver and Farina. Nothing spectacular, I just did it. My parents couldn’t be at Brockport because they didn’t have enough money to make the trip. Right after winning the final match I called them and my girl friend. I was crying. I was really happy, but feeling very alone with no one there to share this exciting moment with me. Bobby Weaver, just a high school junior at the time, recalls his experiences: Following in my older brothers’ footsteps, I started wrestling as a grade-school kid at St. Anthony’s Community Center in Easton, Pennsylvania. I had a lot of family tragedy to deal with early
in my life. My father and brothers were the ones that got me to take up wrestling. My father had a big influence on me in my early years. However, when I was eight years old he passed away and that was a huge loss. My mom was left to be the driving force in the family. One of my older brothers, Brad, was a good wrestler for Easton in the early ’70s. He finished 2nd in the states his junior year, losing in the championship finals in the last second. He never got another chance to win states, though. That summer he was killed in an automobile accident. I had always looked up to Brad so much. At Easton high school, I won the State Tournament three times – 1975, 1976 and in 1977. There was this guy at Easton, Henry Callie, who was my size and could beat me in grade school and my freshman year, too. My sophomore year he wrestled one weight above me and took 2nd in the states. He would push me every day in pracWrestlers At The Trials 97