Foxcatcher: The True Story of My Brother's Murder, John du Pont's Madness, and the Quest for Olympic Gold Read Online Free PDF

opponent’s hands, I could ride him pretty well. The funny thing is that the hand-control concept was so simple. I couldn’t understand why more wrestlers—shoot, all wrestlers—weren’t doing it. I never shared the secret of the hand-control standup with anyone.
    Thanks to what Jim taught me, I improved at escapes. I was training as hard as I could, too. But still, the wins weren’t coming. I made the mistake of believing that if I learned techniques like Dave, I’d be winning like him, too. The big difference didn’t come, though, until I realized that I would need to add explosive power to the techniques to make them work.
    After losing those first four matches, my record climbed to 4-6 by about halfway through the season. That’s when Coach Brown decided to replace me with Wade to make our team better, even though I was still winning our weekly challenge matches.
    I didn’t like the fact that Coach had created the challenge system and then didn’t follow it. He had established the rules we were playing by, but then he threw out the rules so he could have Wade wrestle in tournaments instead of me.
    On top of that, we were forfeiting matches in the upper weights we couldn’t fill because of our lack of heavier wrestlers. Our team was lousy, so I didn’t understand the “make the team better” reason. And I didn’t care about the team anyway. Sure, they added up points for team totals at tournaments, but as far asI was concerned, wrestling was an individual sport. It was me against my opponent. That’s all I cared about.
    Instead of talking to Coach Brown, I went straight to the principal, who instructed Coach to put me back on varsity. Because of that, the situation was partly my fault, too. I should have talked to Coach Brown first. I could have talked to him about it, because he was a good coach. He made a judgment call I didn’t agree with, and there was nothing more to it than that.
    At least on the surface.
    But when I look back, I think the reason I went to the principal first is that, mentally, I had already checked out of Ashland. I never was happy in Oregon, I wanted out of there, and I was willing to stir up trouble if that’s what it took to make it happen.
    I started skipping classes. I got into a fight in PE and broke my hand when I punched the kid in the back of the head. The only lesson I learned from that incident was to never again punch someone in the back of the head; it’s too hard back there. With my hand in a cast, I flunked typing class. Then I cut off the cast because I got tired of wearing it. The hand didn’t heal correctly.
    I couldn’t wait to flee Oregon, but I couldn’t go back to Palo Alto until my probation period expired. Waiting out the remainder of my probation seemed to slow time significantly. I felt as if I had been ripped off in being arrested and put on probation anyway. Then there were the problems on the wrestling team, my broken hand, and wanting to get out of the same house as my mom’s boyfriend.
    Dave came for another visit after wrestling season, this one tied to recruiting. It seemed as if every college with a wrestlingprogram was recruiting Dave, and that made me jealous of him. I had always been a better natural athlete than him and had won the gymnastics championship in California. I would look at Dave and think about how uncoordinated he had been and wonder how he had become so good at wrestling in such a short time. Dave’s success confused me, but it also opened my eyes to the potential I could have as a wrestler. If nothing else, I knew that if I gave my full attention to wrestling, I would have a top-notch workout partner in my brother.
    During the week Dave spent with us, Ron Finley, the coach at the University of Oregon, and Bob Rheim from Southern Oregon came to talk with him. While Mark and I were talking to the coaches, he called me a pothead. I couldn’t beiieve he said that right in front of them.
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    D ave’s senior season at Palo