By Sandy Stevens, Special to W.I.N.

Still sweating from his first match at the California State High School Championships, Jacob Berry headed for the head table.

“Thank you for coming here and doing this,” the Lowell High School senior said to the announcers. “This is great.” Pointing to the nearly full Rabobank Arena in Bakersfield, he said, “I’m from San Francisco and we don’t get much support for wrestling there.”

Then Jacob stepped back and spread his arms wide. “This is my day!” he declared.

He had just been pinned in the pigtail round in 59 seconds.

“It was the toughest competition I’ve ever faced … by far,” the 215-pounder said later. “I hadn’t been cradled since my sophomore year.”

The California championships are arguably the toughest state tournament in the nation. All entrants, regardless of school size, meet and compete in just one division. Just qualifying is an honor.

Yet, no matter what size the event, a first-round loss — a shattered dream of ending up atop the awards stand — fills most wrestlers with despair. Jacob had a different perspective for the sport he has learned to love and he explained why.

“I had to beg my friends to come to our meets,” he said. “The only people who come are parents and we don’t get a lot of them. We have three consistent student fans, and there are 2,400 students in my school.

“At least a fourth of the school shows up at football and basketball games,” he said. “The only time we get much support is when a football player comes out for wrestling.”

Jacob began wrestling when a school security guard, who was an assistant coach, urged him to consider the sport. Also, Dave Berry, Jacob’s dad, had competed in the middle and upper weights at Ironton High School in Ohio.

“I had a lot of good feedback from people who had wrestled,” Jacob said. “I thought it sounded like fun.”

Lowell’s head wrestling coach, Denise Lee, wrestled at 112 pounds in her senior year at Lowell in 2000. An alternative high school (grades 9-12) that requires top academics for entrance, Lowell boasted depth up through about 130 pounds

“We have a lot of (smaller) Asian students,” he explained.

After 130, however, the numbers plummeted.

“We didn’t even have a heavyweight,” Jacob said.

Members of the Lowell wrestling team take on a lot of fundraising activities to pay their way to tournaments. The past year, they worked at races and marathons and sold food in the stands at Little League games. “We were the hot dog people,” Jacob said.

Jacob placed first in the San Francisco Public School League and was named All-City. Four others on the team qualified for state, but none of them medaled.

The Lowell squad also included Jacob’s brother, Sam, a 171-pound freshman.

Following his second loss, he continued to thank workers and volunteers throughout the arena.

With a 3.75 non-weighted GPA, Jacob is planning to major in political science or international relations. Schools at the top of his list include Occidental College, the University of California at San Diego and American University.

In kindergarten, Jacob entered a Spanish immersion program that continued through fifth grade and he spent a week in Mexico with fellow elementary school students. As a result, he speaks fluent Spanish. He also speaks “pretty good Hebrew,” which he continues to study and he is taking Latin courses at Lowell.

At the state meet, Jacob’s dad videotaped his son’s matches. Then the Berrys received an unexpected bonus. Just before the finals, Jacob was one of 13 wrestlers, nominated at state by officials, other coaches or volunteers, recognized with the California Interscholastic Federation’s sportsmanship award.

“It’s definitely the biggest, shiniest, heaviest, nicest medal I’ve ever received,” Jacob said. “All I did was smile and thank people for coming. I feel like the award should be given to all the volunteers who were there.

“It was like a dream come true, to see all that support for wrestling,” he said. “This entire arena was rented out for wrestling. Even though I’d lost and been ‘destroyed,’ it was fulfilling, something that was missing before.

“It really made me feel there was support for wrestling after all.”

(Sandy Stevens, who lives in Glen Ellyn, Ill., is a freelance writer and has served as the public address announcer at many of the top national wrestling events, at all age levels, for the past three decades.) n