|
ael Sanderson was losing. Rarely does that happen,
but such was the case during a practice session inside the Lorenzo Wrestling Complex this spring.
Sanderson and his workout partner – two-time
NCAA champion Ed Ruth – were training Olympic
freestyle, wrestling a series of two-minute mini
matches. Sanderson won the first few, but during
the next, Ruth took the lead and continued to hold
it as the period drew to a close.
But Sanderson wasn't going down easy. Losing clearly isn't his
thing, and time was running out. "So I set up my best shot," he
said, "and fired in as fast as I could."
Ruth called it a "desperation" attempt. Sanderson quipped that
the shot was so quick Ruth had no time to react. Whichever it
was, the outcome was painful.
As he lunged toward a defensive Ruth, Sanderson's face accidentally – yet forcefully – collided with the 184-pounder's knee,
opening up a gash that crosshatched through his right eyebrow.
"I tried to move my leg out of the way to sprawl," Ruth said.
"Then his head went right into my knee. He hit it so hard. All of
a sudden he just went down. He stood back up walked around a
little bit, and then he laid back down, kinda fell down to the mat
and just started chilling. I was like, 'What's going on?' I saw
blood droppings all over the mat. When he sat up, there was a little pool of blood and sweat [where he was sitting]. It was pretty
crazy."
Added Sanderson, "You get hit a lot in wrestling but this one
was kinda like, 'Man, something's not right.' They used stitches
