Grappling with misfortune
Amid crazy ’05, Zadick prepares for Trials
By Andy Hamilton
Iowa City Press-Citizen
After five months of misfortune, missed flights, missing luggage and missed time on the mat, Mike Zadick stopped searching for the message behind the most difficult year of his freestyle wrestling career.
He was raised in a spiritual Catholic family and taught that God has a plan for him.
But what was the meaning behind needing shoulder surgery, breaking his nose, injuring his knee, battling mononucleosis, and cracking his sternum in a matter of months? What was the message the former University of Iowa star was supposed to receive from going through all sorts of travel difficulties just to get to his two biggest international tournaments of the winter and losing his workout gear in the process?
“I don’t know, “Zadick said. “I quit thinking about it. I’ve always said I was trying to find out what He was trying to tell me. If I were a normal person, I’d probably say (God was telling me) to quit wrestling, and maybe you’re not supposed to be wrestling anymore. But I threw that one out the window just because I don’t believe it.”
That’s why Zadick, who turns 27 next month, will be on the mat today at the U.S. World Team Trials in Ames. He enters the weekend ranked fourth in the country at 132 pounds and needs to win today’s challenge tournament to face Michael Lightner on Sunday in a best-of-three series to represent the U.S. in September in Hungary.
“I think he’s going to be ready at the right time, “said Iowa administrative assistant Mike Duroe, who will coach the U.S. freestyle team at the World Championships. “Mike Zadick has as much talent as anybody in the country in that weight class. If he just allows himself to go out and wrestle, he’ll have a lot of success.”
Simply getting on the mat has been one of Zadick’s biggest obstacles during the past year.
“He’s had horrible luck, “said Luke Eustice, Zadick’s former collegiate teammate. “I don’t think he’s gotten in a groove as far as getting matches, getting good training and matches. I don’t think he’s gotten that yet.
“He always says, ‘Whatever God gives me, that’s His plan.’ That’s how (Zadick) always thinks. You’ve got to have a positive attitude, especially when that many things happen to you and you’re banged up like that all the time, you’ve got to believe something good is going to come out of it.”
The fun-loving, adventurous former All-American spends his spare time on a farm he rents south of Solon, where he looks after donkeys, peacocks, chickens and other small animals, only because there’s not enough room in 14 acres for the “gazillion cattle and horses “he says he’d like to have.
But this year hasn’t been much fun for Zadick from a wrestling standpoint.
He underwent shoulder surgery in August and wasn’t supposed to be ready to wrestle again until January. But Zadick’s recovery was a month ahead of schedule, so he started training for the New York Athletic Club tournament in December, only to break his nose in practice.
A few weeks later, he was scheduled to leave Cedar Rapids on a Sunday in January en route to a tournament in Russia. Prior to the trip, Zadick had sustained a knee injury, but nothing that would keep him from wrestling.
Weather problems pushed the first flight of the trip one day behind schedule. Under normal conditions, he doesn’t like flying, let alone flying overseas. On the second flight of the trip, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean the plane turned around and went back to Atlanta.
By the time he arrived in Russia on Wednesday, Zadick had already missed a dual meet that was a warmup for the ultra-competitive Ivan Yarygin Memorial. Unable to work out for nearly three days, his weight was above normal, and Zadick arrived at the tournament inside a frigid Russian gymnasium that wasn’t ideal for shedding pounds. He didn’t win a match.
“That was kind of a torture trip, “Zadick said. “My weight was high, and getting it down was a bear. I got it done, and then competed. It’s not the ideal situation you want, but I went with it, didn’t perform, and didn’t have the outcome I wanted.”
Zadick’s next trip overseas wasn’t any better. He left March 9 for the World Cup in Uzbekistan. Zadick and a couple other members of the U.S. traveling party missed a connecting flight out of Turkey and spent an extra day in Istanbul. By the time they arrived March 13 in Uzbekistan — two hours prior to the start of the tournament — Zadick’s luggage containing his workout gear was missing.
He came home without his luggage, without a victory and with mononucleosis.
“I didn’t get my luggage, “Zadick said. “I still haven’t gotten it. I’ve been fighting since then, thinking I’d have it by the U.S. Open, and I still don’t have it.”
Throughout much of March and early April, Zadick said his bout with mononucleosis changed his training. By the time he was over it, Zadick was preparing for the U.S. Open in Las Vegas.
Zadick was finishing up a workout two weeks prior to the tournament when he spotted a football in the Iowa wrestling room. He wanted to keep his sweat flowing, so he started running pass patterns. As Zadick ran a route, a former university employee standing on the side ran across the mat and tackled Zadick, cracking his sternum.
“I was running full sprint, just as I caught the ball he ran into me, “Zadick said. “His elbow or knee or something drilled me right in the sternum and I thought he stuck a rib through my heart.
“After that, I’d had it. I was still competing. I was going to inject it and just wrestle, and I stopped in to see the priest the next day. You want to know some bad luck? There’s always a priest at hand to talk to. I showed up one day to talk to the priest and he was out to lunch. Are you kidding me?”
Zadick went back to visit with the priest the next day and told his story. The priest told him to keep praying, so that’s what Zadick does.
Zadick pulled out of the U.S. Open. Despite being second on the U.S. ladder for two straight years, he needed to win his weight at the Northern Plains Regional in May just to qualify for the World Team Trials. He won his three matches by a collective 35-1 margin.
“It’s been a roller coaster, and it seems like it’s all been down and it’s starting to come back up, “Zadick said. “Getting ready for (the World Team Trials), things have been great. I’ve got little nicks and bruises here and there, but nothing that will restrict me, by any means.”
Reach Andy Hamilton at 339-7368 or [email protected].
Wrestling Gear
