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Petoskey's Hidden Talent
WEDNESDAY | NOVEMBER 14, 2007
Picture Cassie Petoskey in a singlet and headgear, wrestling a big sweaty guy in the eighth grade city tournament finals as the crowd chants her name.
"The entire Pioneer High School wrestling team was chanting 'Petoskey, Petoskey' as this gross kid from Slauson had me in a cradle and was about to pin me," said Cassie as teammates and assistant coach Gregg Whitis listened intently to her tale. "I kicked out, hooked him from behind and then pinned him with about two seconds left in the first quarter. It was my shining moment." I bet you never pegged Cassie as a middle school wrestler, but it's in her genes. Her father, Bill, was co-captain of the 1980 U-M wrestling team and lettered three years with the Maize and Blue. He still goes hunting with U-M head wrestling coach Joe McFarland. Cassie's brother, Jim, was also a wrestler at Pioneer. Hence the cheering section at the city tournament.
"My dad and brother always asked me why I didn't wrestle so I tried it around fourth and fifth grade and it was fun," Cassie continued. "I was co-captain of my middle school wrestling team and won the city tournament my final year with three pins. I was good because I knew what I was doing. I had some good teachers."
Cassie told stories of what it was like to be a girl in a traditionally male sport and to have guys admit, sometimes a little too confidently, that they had never wrestled a girl before. "One goofy looking guy said to me once, 'This is the first time I've wrestled a girl'," recalled Cassie. "And when I beat him, I said, 'I guess it's the first time you lost to a girl too.'"
She only wrestled a fellow female once, and the story is short and sweet. "It was fine," said Cassie, shrugging a bit. "I beat her." She paused. "I almost teched her." A few teammates looked a bit confused; one asked what "teched" means.
As Cassie explained that a technical fall is a victory achieved by building a lead of 15 points or more, Whitis demonstrated Cassie's dominance by pretend-slamming an invisible opponent to the ground and repeating over and over, "Cassie would take her down and let her up, take her down and let her up, take her down and let her up ..." Whitis looked like a proud father as he demonstrated what Cassie's glorious moment might have looked like.
Cassie had to give up the wrestling life once she hit high school because her first love, volleyball, conflicted with the sport. "Besides," Cassie said, "the guys were a lot bigger by then too." She is shy about her skill, but her teammates and Whitis looked on with a good deal of admiration as Cassie told her stories. Every one of the Wolverines has a hidden talent, but few would have guessed that Cassie's would be butt-kicking. The Playoff Beard
FRIDAY | NOVEMBER 9, 2007
Mark Rosen has never been superstitious. Compared with other coaches and athletes that volleyball media relations director Rich Retyi has dealt with, Rosen is flip about the fickle fates of sport. "I am one of the least superstitious people you will meet," said Rosen. "I never had any weird routines or lucky numbers or anything like that." Rosen, a volleyball and hockey player, finds himself on one end of the spectrum, while former Major League pitcher Turk Wendell -- once a teammate of Michigan baseball coach Rich Maloney -- is on the other end.
"I played with Turk and he had a bunch of superstitions," said Maloney. "He would brush his teeth between innings and always chew black licorice in the dugout. He also had a few routines on the mound that were odd. When he struck someone out he would run around the mound while the infield threw it around the horn, trying to outrace the ball. He was also a good Catholic boy, so before games he would kneel and cross himself before drawing three crosses in the dirt on the mound. Then he would turn and stare at the centerfielder and he would not move a muscle until the centerfielder acknowledged him. Then he'd pitch."
Retyi falls somewhere in the middle. When the Michigan volleyball team hit a recent three-match losing skid after starting the year 17-4, Retyi took matters of fate into his own hands and started growing a good old fashioned playoff beard. It's more of a stretch run beard, but Retyi won't quibble with semantics. The intent is the same. He didn't consult Rosen (or his personal stylist) but began it on the sly. Retyi, a good Canadian boy, has the genes to sport a proper playoff beard, and in one week the scruff was prominent.
The Wolverines' losing streak ended abruptly against a good Minnesota squad in a five-game thriller, followed by a dominating sweep over Iowa in front of a national television audience on the Big Ten Network. The proof is in the beard.
"I will admit to getting a little more superstitious in the last few years," said Rosen. "For a while Gregg (Whitis) and I would eat at the same place during a win streak and then once we lost we ate somewhere else. I figure why tempt the volleyball gods. I've joined the neurotic coach's society."
Despite the win streak, Retyi's beard is in the itchy stage, giving him more cause to shave clean and end his mountain man look. But Rosen is invested in the beard now. "If he shaves that thing I'm going to kill him," said Rosen.
Wolverine fans shouldn't fret that their coach will get too caught up in appeasing the volleyball gods. Unless, of course, he starts brushing his teeth and chewing black licorice on the bench. | | | 2007 Archive
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