at the Munich arena on match day, the coaches found him in a bar. Rick Sanders wasn’t hiding the hard partying side of his life from anyone. But by this time, I was.
If anything marks the beginning of what I call my double life of addiction to wrestling and drugs, it’s the summer I saw Dan Gable wrestle—the first time I tried marijuana. Not six months after I promised that cop I wouldn’t.
The summer before my freshman year of high school, I found myself sitting on the railroad ties near the Falls Church community center pool with a bunch of the wilder, cooler, older kids in town. My life revolved around that pool in the summers throughout high school, and that life had now spilled over into the woods and these tracks, where kids drank and smoked pot seemingly every day. I had some status as a wrestler and football player, but I wasn’t part of their crowd. They wanted me to join them and were passing a pipe down the line. The smell the officer had showed us was getting closer.
I had meant it when I told him I wouldn’t do it. I told myself I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t succumb to peer pressure.
Here… No thanks. Come on… Nah, I’m good. HERE…
This didn’t sound like a request anymore, but a do-it-and-you’re-in, don’t-and-you’re-out ultimatum. These weren’t my friends. These were the kids I desperately wanted to accept me—and they weren’t taking no for an answer.
They knew it was my first time. Embarrassment and fear of being called a loser overtook my conscience. I took a toke and got immediate praise, which I accepted. On the inside, I knew I had just made a mistake—that I had betrayed that police officer, my parents, and myself.
Not that I let those feelings stop me. I drank and smoked pot that entire summer with my new friends. We stole beer from the 7–11 or High’s. We partied though the night. Thus began my double life: one “me” riding around with kids in cars, drinking, smoking, and eventually doing harder drugs, the other “me” maintaining the facade of “All-American Boy”—the wrestler with the bright future.
My double life was really only for my family and teachers. I didn’t have to hide it from the wrestlers. Rick Sanders wasn’t an exception in the sport. Wrestlers are the ultimate athletes and party animals—a fact my sister Teri confirmed for me on New Year’s Eve my freshman year. She had a date with the greatest wrestler to ever come out of our area, who was on break from his college wrestling team in Indiana. They let me tag along with them to a house party. I was the youngest one there, and they took me under their wing and taught me how to do tequila shots. While they left me to go dance, I stayed in the kitchen doing shots until after the clock struck twelve. When we returned home, Teri’s date deposited me on the side of the house, where I remained until I puked. I slept in the side yard—and I still woke up and completed a three-hour 8:00 a.m. wrestling practice.
I figured Rick Sanders would’ve been proud, especially because I was playing with the big boys now on every level. Nothing was going to keep me out of that spotlight. I longed to be there. I worked my ass off to get there. I may have been smoking pot and drinking. I may have been awkward around girls. But all those Johns bowed before John the Wrestler. I felt more confident and more alive than ever when I was on the wrestling mat.
My freshman year, I won the varsity starting position at my weight in a wrestle-off against a kid from the neighborhood, whom I knew from my all-star boys’ club team that competed around the DC metro area. I won the girl too: captain of the freshman cheerleaders, whom I’d had a crush on since first grade. But things were not meant to end the way they started. In wrestling, the coach could allow someone to challenge for the starting position, and I ended up losing a challenge match after a controversial call. I lost the girl soon after.
Fair or not, I resolved never to let that happen again. Despite my status as the backup 112-pounder, my high school coach took me to the NCAA nationals, and I got to meet my hero Dan Gable in the practice room. Clinging to the confidence wrestling gave me, I didn’t just gawk from afar or ask to shake his hand—I walked right up to him, announced who I was, and asked him to “go takedowns with me.” He looked at me and said… Nah, that’s okay, kid.
Dejected, I sat against the wall and watched him work out. When it was over, he came up to me, grabbed me by the arm, and said, “Let’s go.” We playfully went at it for over twenty minutes, and he even let me ask questions about technique. I thanked him. Hungry for more, I went looking for another top-level wrestler to work out with. That summer I attended summer camp with Doug Blubaugh, an Olympic champion and college coach who taught me how “those who do, do.” His words still in my head, I became determined to do.
Sophomore year, I regained the starting position, and there was no taking my spot away again. I won the bronze medal at State and was now one of the leaders of the team. I moved up to a higher-tier cheerleader too—I was now dating the captain of the varsity squad.
Nothing could stop me. Except me.
BEING WATCHED
Until April of my sophomore year, my biggest anxiety was the future. Wrestling gave me confidence on the mat, but at night, especially before the season and after it ended, I would lie in bed, unable to sleep. I was scared that I’d have nowhere to go. That I would pick the wrong path. That I would be beholden to my parents forever. That they would spend their hard-earned savings sending me to college, and I would screw up and have to come home and remain in Falls Church and live under their roof, bound by their rules. The loser drunk stoner child.
Nothing I did—including drinking, getting high more, or getting into the occasional fight—made things any clearer. They only made me forget. As soon as I was sober or the adrenaline wore off or I was alone again, the anxiety returned.
By high school, it seemed to me that everyone knew where he or she was going but me. My friends were getting ready to enter their family businesses, which we didn’t have, or knew exactly what career they’d pursue. I took a career aptitude test, and it recommended that I become a funeral director.
My father wasn’t much help in guiding me. It wasn’t just the top-secret nature of his work. I asked him once what I should be, and he responded that not many men get to make a living doing something they enjoy, and I “gotta work”—which meant study. Which I was not about to do. I saw no value in learning math or science. Art and English bored me. I hated it all, though I still managed to get A’s and B’s simply by looking the part of the conscientious student, respectful and seemingly attentive.
Thank God for wrestling. Whenever I stepped in the training room or competed with the team, I felt like I belonged, like everything would be okay. It anchored me while allowing me to be the free spirit I longed to be everywhere else in my life. Wrestling was my creative expression, my science, and unlike my schoolwork, I continued to work hard and take beating after beating to get better. My teammates never knew what happened after I got home and crawled into my bed at night, separated from the wrestling and partying, when the anxiety would creep in.
That anxiety diminished on April 5, 1976—the day I got my first letter from a college. It was from Washington and Lee University, a terrific liberal arts school a few hours from us in Virginia. They spelled my name wrong, but what did that matter? Their wrestling coach had seen me capture my State medal, and while there was no mention of a scholarship, my coach said it was implied, assuming I continued to excel on the mat and managed to graduate. He also said this was just the beginning.
Johnny, you are being watched.
And oh, how I wanted that scholarship. I was a shaky investment, but this one letter made me believe I was going to be able to take care of myself on my own terms. I want to pay my own way through college with a scholarship, I said to myself over and over. A free ride would free me to make my own mistakes without my parents paying for them. My dad would never get to question my grades and say, “Why did you get a D in this class? I’m paying for this.”
The letter from Washington and Lee was enough to keep my anxiety at bay, and I worked even harder to see how much better I could do and how high I could climb. I made the national junior team and got to compete in Poland, which was then behind