AGED TO PERFECTION
Veteran trio wins Trials by sticking to goals
Sweat was pouring from his 265-pound body and he had a hard time catching his breath from the exhaustion of wrestling six hard minutes against perhaps the toughest young heavyweight in this country.
But the 32-year-old Tolly Thompson had no problem smiling. All he had to do from the floor of Iowa State’s Hilton Coliseum was look up into the nearby stands at three women smiling even more than this 2005 World Team Trials champion.
Fo
r Thompson knew this feminine trio — made up of his wife, Tracy, and their daughters, Payton, 6, and Bree, 3 — were three reasons why he put his mind and body through so much pain at a time most of his peers had retired from the mat.“I’ve been overseas away from my family and my kids half the winter,” recalled Thompson after he defeated Oklahoma State’s two-time NCAA champion Steve Mocco in a pair of matches at the recent World Team Trials in Ames, Iowa.
Ironically, this central Iowa town was where Thompson was born in June 25, 1973, but his life has been a whirl-wind since he first stepped on the mat; taking him to the University of Nebraska, where he won an NCAA championship in 1995 and earned two other All-American honors and later to winning gold medals at the 1998 and 2002 Pan American championships.
But there was also something missing on his resume: a shot at a world championship.
That nearly happened in 1998 when Thompson won his first U.S. Nationals championship and was the man to beat at the World Team Trials that year. But Thompson spent that day having surgery and was unable to compete.
Thompson’s absence also opened the door for Kerry McCoy and Stephen Neal, who owned the top spot at heavyweight for the next seven years while Thompson labored in anonymity while serving as an assistant coach at the University of Northern Iowa.
Yet, Thompson persevered and has reaped the rewards the last two months; first at the U.S. Nationals, where he pinned Mocco for his second national title in late April, and at the World Team Trials, where added two more wins against college wrestling’s most heralded performer who also won the coveted Dan Hodge Trophy.
“It’s been a quest,” admitted Thompson. “It’s not always about winning. It’s a process to how you do it. I’ve learned a ton on the process the last seven or eight years.”
So too have Sammie Henson and Chris Bono, who like Thompson, performed well beyond their years and also captured spots on the 2005 U.S. world team on an appropriate Sunday in June:
Father’s Day.
“Waking up and seeing my babies in the morning motivates me,” said Bono, 30, who first thought of his wife, Niki, and daughters, Josie and Ellie, after he defeated Jared Lawrence in a pair of Championship Series matches at 145.5 pounds. “I have to win for them. Dad’s not home a lot when he’s training. I want my girls to be proud of me.”
(You can read the rest of this article by subscribing to W.I.N. Magazine. Either contact our office at 1-888-305-0606 or subscribe through this website by selecting the “Subscribe” section on our front page.)