The author is the publisher of Spotlight Newspapers.
I was in a panic.
It was five minutes before my son JW had to hit the mat for his match and I couldn’t find a coach. JW, 11, was in his second year of wrestling. He had almost no tournament experience. I had no idea how to help him through a match. There was a sea of people ready to watch JW wrestle. And we were on a desert island without a coach.
For those of you who haven’t experienced a youth wrestling tournament, it is where 300-plus 7-to-15-year-olds meet in a gym on a weekend morning and duel it out for eight hours on 10 different mats. It is organized chaos.
Coaching was nothing new to me. I coached both my children in many sports because, if I played it, I could at least understand how to coach it at a basic level. But when it came to wrestling, I had no clue. I would sit on the side of the mat watching JW wrestle and murmur, “Er… Go.”
With no maroon BH-BL coach shirts to be seen through the swarm of people, I had a glimmer of hope. I spotted Lori Blatnick, one of the Burnt Hills Youth Wrestling organizers walking by and I shot up a flare.
I explained my situation, with lots of hand motion and wild eyes. She smiled and said, “I’ll take care of it. Go back to the mat and I’ll send a coach over.”
Relief. I took my place next to JW and waited for the first match to end. We were up next.
Just in the nick of time, I felt a large hand on my shoulder and I looked up to see a massive person kneel between JW and I.
“Are you ready, son?” He asked.
“Of course,” I replied.
The coach swung his head around and smiled. “I meant him, dad,” he said, pointing to JW.
That was the first time I really interacted with Jeff Blatnick.
With his untimely death last week at the age of 55, I thought back about the person being described by friends, colleagues and the public.
Many people saw Jeff as an Olympic champion, a world-class wrestler, motivational speaker or a superstar. I had a different view of him. Because I didn’t grow up in the Capital District, I never knew him as those things. I always saw him as a father, coach and fellow Burnt Hills parent. He was unimposing, almost shy. Unlike so many who have achieved fame, he never pushed himself to the front of a room or made himself the center of attention unless someone asked him to help.
And help he did at Burnt Hills.
Jeff Blatnick talked strategy with JW in the foreign language of wrestling before he stepped onto the mat at that tournament years ago. JW, only weighing 60 pounds soaking wet, usually drew the stud champions in the first round and always wrestled first. This, most often, meant he would be pinned in less than two minutes.
It was back and forth until the end of the first period. The second was close, with both wrestlers scoring points. I just took pictures, like I always do, and kept my mouth shut as coach and kid communicated through short commands and subsequent moves. “Arm. Watch the leg. Squeeze. Good. Easy.” Blatnick kept a steady, calm tone. Then he turned to me.
“It’s over.”
I was floored. “What? How could it be over, he’s doing so well!”
Blatnick just grinned and pointed. I turned back around and brought my camera up and snapped a few frames as JW rolled, flopped the opponent over and pinned him with three slaps of the mat from the referee. I turned to the coach, “How did you know that was going to happen?” I asked.
“I have been doing this a long time. JW knew what to do. Congratulations, dad,” he said.
JW came off the mat after being declared the winner of his first match and said, “Thanks Coach Blatnick.”
“You’re welcome. Good job,” he replied to the beaming wrestler. Then he melted away into the crowd.
As a former coach, I paid close attention to his interaction with his wrestlers and parents. Blatnick approached wrestling with passion, but without overexuberance. Many matches he would say a few words to the wrestler then wait, watch, then add a few more words.
Win, lose or draw Jeff would articulate what the wrestler did correctly and then point out what could have been done better. He had the ability to analyze and break down a concept to the simplest terms so his pupils understood not only that it was important, but why. He was patient and very precise.
With parents he would set expectations and help them understand their role was to help him help the athlete. So rarely is that done in sports today.
I don’t claim to have been a good friend of Jeff’s, but I certainly was a fan of his style.
If I were to write his resume I would list it like this: 1984 Olympic Champion, MMA and ESPN analyst, professional speaker, coach, mentor, husband and father of two. I would add, for me, in small type at the bottom: “Helped little kid win his first wrestling match.”
Thank you, Jeff, for all you did for our community.
We will miss you.