Gary Blockus
Anyone who thinks they know what former Lehigh wrestler Jon Trenge went through during his senior season would be well served by checking out ”Veritas: The Jon Trenge Story,” a documentary film by Howie Miller.
”Veritas” isn’t just a wrestling movie, though. It’s a documentary on the relationship between a father and son as well as between a coach and a wrestler.
For anyone who loves wrestling, it’s a must-see. For anyone who ever dared to compete in any sport, it’s a compelling account of a young man’s journey to reach his boyhood dream. Anyone who thinks they know what any athlete goes through needs to see ”Veritas.”
The locally sponsored documentary premiered with an advance screening to the public last Friday in the FanFest Tent during the 2007 NCAA Wrestling Championships outside Detroit, and the 200 or so people who sat through the movie stood up and applauded at the end.
And they weren’t just Lehigh people in the audience. Fans from Iowa, Iowa State, Michigan and even Penn State stood and cheered at the poignant ending.
Trenge, a Parkland High School graduate, suffered a retinal tear during his freshman year at Lehigh that kept him out of the postseason. Eye specialists told him he risked blindness if he continued to wrestle, but Trenge, now an assistant coach at Lehigh, refused to give up on his dream of winning an NCAA title and wrestling in the Olympics.
His dad created a set of headgear with a pair of goggles sewn on using an old dog collar.
The real drama from the documentary ? which features shots of Trenge as a youth wrestler as well as interviews with former high school coach Jon Toggas and some area wrestling personalities ? comes from the way Trenge had to learn to deal with opponents deliberately attacking his eyes even though they knew of his eye problems.
According to Miller, a former Parkland wrestler and multiple-time NCAA qualifier who is now a story producer with the television reality show ”The Bachelor,” the documentary’s working title was ”Mat Men” to be based on the entire 2004-05 Lehigh season.
”I had known that Jon had eye problems and it created an interesting back story,” Miller said from Los Angeles. ”As we followed the team, I think it was No. 2 in the country at the time, it became clear Jon would be the focus. The way the season went, it became Jon’s story, and the story of his relationship with coach [Greg] Strobel is an important part of it.”
Anyone who has any desire to coach at any level needs to see the way Strobel handles the situation. Particularly noteworthy is the way Strobel acts and interacts with Trenge after the wrestlers was disqualified in a dual meet at Penn State. His opponent continued to deliberately attack Trenge’s eyes, and, angered, Trenge fought his way inside the opponent, locked up his arms and performed an overhead throw, tossing the Nittany Lion wrestler over his head and behind him while both wrestlers went off the mat.
Eventually, Trenge was suspended from the team for his on-mat behavior and directed to undergo anger management.
”It’s a pretty cool movie,” said Trenge, who spoke on stage after the screening. ”It’s a good wrestling movie because it’s about real wrestling. The move shows that while I may have been a jerk on the mat, I wasn’t a jerk off of it, and it shows people more of the real me.”
More than that, it shows the relationship between a coach and his team, his responsibility and care for the individuals in his charge. The workout and training scenes are inspiring, and the ending was obviously well thought out.
”We’re just finishing up all the fine details and legal work,” Miller said. ”It will be released as a DVD fairly soon. We’re trying to sell it to television and theaters. It’s really been a labor of love making it. The next challenge is getting it out to the public, and hopefully on TV and in the theaters.”
The movie has a web site http://www.veritas-movie.com for more information on its availability. Several local people helped finance the movie, and Island Gateway in L.A. got involved during editing and post-production.
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