Olympic coach finds time to help local wrestlers

By Jim Hodges

Correspondent

It was maybe two years ago, as Norman Smith remembers it.

"It was after a meet," said Smith, Great Bridge High School's wrestling coach. "He came up and introduced himself."

Jay Antonelli hardly had to. Even if the cauliflower ears of an international wrestler hadn't given him away, he was certainly familiar to the sport's cognoscenti, of which Smith is one.

"I'd seen him in some magazines," Smith said. "We talked, and he asked if he could come by."

Are you kidding? How often does one of the coaches of the U.S. Olympic Greco-Roman wrestling team this year in Beijing ask for some workout time in your wrestling room?

"He's not able to get here often, but when he comes, we're glad to have him," Smith said. "I pick his brain. Sometimes he has a different idea about how to finish a hold or something."

Las Vegas. Colorado Springs. A year ago, Baku, Azerbaijan, where he helped coach the U.S. team to its first World championship.

Afghanistan. Iraq.

It's why Antonelli relishes Wednesday nights at Great Bridge. There aren't nearly as many as he would like.

"I am a Marine first," said Antonelli, a major who commutes from his home in Chesapeake to Joint Forces Command in Suffolk. "My job is doing what the Marines tell me to do. They tell me to go to Iraq tomorrow, I go. I've done a tour in Iraq and I've done a tour in Afghanistan, and they are two highlights of my career."

He acknowledges two extremely tolerant people in his life: Estonian-born wife Ingrid, who raises their three children in their River Walk home when he is on the road; and Col. Stephen Campbell, Antonelli's commanding officer at JFCOM.

Ingrid probably knew what she was getting into, because she met Antonelli when she was an interpreter for his Marine team that was wrestling in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Campbell plays the cards he is dealt.

"They've moved around schedules to accommodate this, and without them it wouldn't have been possible," Antonelli said of the people at JFCOM.

There have been plenty of accommodations in his 16 years in the Marine Corps after graduation from the Naval Academy.

Antonelli was a wrestler before he became a Marine. From a wrestling family, his father brought him to the sport as a tot in New Jersey. Antonelli's brother, Brian, is an assistant coach at the Academy.

He wears a combative demeanor, especially in his eyes. Wrestling coaches are passionate about their sport and can link with each other naturally, whether they do so in a Communist country or after a meet in Great Bridge.

"It's kind of hard to explain, because the sport is not fun," Antonelli said. "It's a lot of work, but I think what draws people to it is that you get out of it what you put into it. You dedicate yourself to it, and only you know if you're cutting corners."

Even if you don't know, you often learn in a match when you find yourself on your back and a referee's hand slaps the mat.

"In public, you have to be a good loser," Antonelli said. "But I would go in my dark place and kick myself in the head 10 times and know that I had more work to do."

It's a message he gives to anyone who will listen.

"He has been working with a wrestler from Great Bridge Middle School," Smith said. "I think he met the parents when his son joined our Pee Wee Wrestling Club."

Mat beginnings

Antonelli is succinct about his reasons for spending time with anyone who asks about his sport.

"It's a way of giving back," he said. "Wrestling has been great to me."

He learned to wrestle early, then carried on at the Naval Academy. Antonelli's goal was to represent the U.S. in the Olympics. He wrestled with the Marine Corps team in Quantico, then became the team's coach, which required that he give up competing and take his satisfaction from the group.

Like many dreams, Antonelli's has had a high price that had little to do with sweat in a wrestling room.

"I've been outside the mainstream Marine Corps for so long, I've been passed over," he said. "I knew that would happen. I was counseled on that all along: 'With wrestling, your career is going to suffer.' But I'd do it all over again. I've loved going to work."

He has worked in some far-flung places. So far his passport has the stamps of 31 countries. But even when he's home, Antonelli is coaching. He worked with Nick Badoian, a 130-pounder who finished fifth in the Southeastern District last year as a junior at Suffolk's Nansemond River High School.

That put Antonelli in contact with Trip Seed, who was in his first year as the Warriors' coach.

"He has a lot of knowledge, and I picked his brain," Seed said. "How can you not?... He wanted to stay back, not get in the way of the coach. He said, 'I don't want to step on anybody's toes,' but how can you not take advantage of his knowledge?"

Antonelli understands that a wrestling team is made up of individuals in competition with other individuals.

"When you find success and reach goals you set for yourself, you can say to yourself, 'I did that on my own,' " Antonelli said. "There's something self-satisfying about that."

Representing the U.S.

There's satisfaction in making the Olympic Games in any capacity. Antonelli was an assistant in the 2000 games at Sydney.

"Oh, man, I've always said that, besides my children being born, that's the best experience of my life," he said of marching in the opening ceremonies. "Any time you represent the United States, out there as a U.S. citizen, wearing a uniform, whether it's a Marine uniform or an Olympic uniform, it's a proud moment."

He anticipates that same feeling next month at Beijing, then grows heated when asked about a possible boycott of the opening ceremonies or the Games themselves as a protest of China's treatment of Tibet.

"Any time I hear about boycotting... it makes me want to shudder inside," Antonelli said. "I know several people who got caught up in the 1980 games (in Moscow, boycotted by the U.S.). That wrecked lives. Everybody gets caught up in making a statement, a political statement, but in actuality, it accomplishes nothing. You spend your entire life getting ready for one chance. You put your family on hold. You put your life on hold just for a chance at a medal.

"Then that chance is pulled away from you. You don't wake up one morning and join the Olympics. It isn't every four years, it's every day. You spent eight, 12 years training for a single moment and it's just taken away as a political statement? That's wrong."

It's something he's not preparing for. Instead, he stays on the prowl for wrestlers who can win medals for the U.S. at Beijing.

He recently returned from the U.S. trials in Las Vegas last month. He will leave soon for the Olympics in Beijing and then, finally, he can get some time at home. And time to go back to work at JFCOM and, he hopes, time for a few more Wednesday nights at Great Bridge.

Jim Hodges, jrhwrite@verizon.net