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SJSU Wrestling Archives The Spartan Daily 3-9-81 |
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Memory Haunts Brouhard |
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by Dave Meltzer |
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| It's been one year, almost to the day, but Dave Brouhard remembers it as if it were yesterday. It was the second round of the NCAA wrestling championships and Brouhard was facing one of the favorites, Dave Evans of Wisconsin. Brouhard, holding an 11-8 lead, tried to turn Evans to his back without having complete control of him. Evans managed to break Brouhard's grip, a scramble ensued, Evans ended up on top and went on to win 13-11. But that wasn't the shock that has haunted Brouhard for the past year. In the confusing rules of the NCAA tournament, if you lose within the first three rounds, the man that defeats you must get through the third round unscathed or you're eliminated. Although Brouhard was disappointed with his loss, he felt that Evans would get through his next match and that he would return to take third place. Evans built up a comfortable lead in his third round match with Matt Reiss, before Reiss managed to put an end to Brouhard's season by pinning Evans late in the third period. "It was really heartbreaking," Brouhard recalled. "It haunts me all the time. I'm always thinking about it." Heartbreaking indeed because Reiss went on to win the national championship, Evans placed third, and two other wrestlers Brouhard had stopped during the season placed in the top eight, while he came home with nothing. Now ranked seventh in the nation, Brouhard has a chance to erase his painful memory once and for all as he concludes his collegiate wrestling career Thursday through Saturday at the NCAA championships in Princeton, New Jersey, competing at 177 pounds. The 23-year-old native of Prunedale (a small town between Salinas and Watsonville, so small it doesn't even have a post office) has gone through quite a few changes in his five years at SJSU. "His whole existence has been opened up by coming to a university," Spartan coach T.J. Kerr said. "If it wasn't for wrestling, he'd have been stuck in Prunedale tending sheep or something. Now he's learned about things like women's rights, the Iranian conflict, etc., things he wouldn't have been exposed to." In those five years, Brouhard has earned three PCAA championships and would have had a fourth if he hadn't broken his ribs in the tournament semifinals during his sophomore year, but returned one season later and now ranks second on the all-time Spartan wrestling victory list with 99 wins going into the NCAAs. "What startle me and made me realize it's coming to an end was when my parents called and said 'What'll we do now that we can't watch you wrestle?'" Fashioning a 30-4 record this season, Brouhard is extremely confident when speaking of what awaits him this week. "I don't feel anyone can outmuscle me. Technically, i'm ready for any of them and conditioning-wise i can stay with anybody," he said. "But if you make a little mistake against a good person, it's hard trying to catch up." Brouhard has been pretty well consumed by the opportunity to close out his collegiate career in style. He hasn't seen his girlfriend in a couple of weeks by coach's orders. "She's pretty understanding about it. It's not as if she made a scene about the whole thing," Brouhard said. "I'm so into the nationals right now that it doesn't bother me." Kerr and Brouhard weren't seeing eye-to-eye on training philosophy for a while, as Kerr felt Brouhard wasn't raining like an NCAA champion. That's one of the reasons he "requested" Brouhard stay in, as Brouhard put it, "solitary confinement." Brouhard also had to withstand some formidable obstacles that have come in the way of a return trip to the nationals. In early December, he tore some ligaments in his knee and it was recommended that he go under the knife. Knowing that would finish out his career, he resisted, and three weeks later he was back in action. With his collegiate career coming to a close, Brouhard wants to find a job in which he'll get off at 3:30 pm, which will give him plenty of time to continue training and he'll be able to wrestle three or four more years and be an assistant to Kerr. |
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