InterMat: Inside info from the N.W.C.A
brought to you byBrute Wrestling
The calm before the storm
By Jason Bryant
jbryant@intermatwrestle.com
A small, light blue flyer seems unassuming, but it will speak volumes about the events about to unfold in Fargo, N.D.
"Welcome USA Wrestling Cadet and Junior Nationals," the flyer reads.
A short car-ride or refreshing walk from the FargoDome, down University Blvd. will put you directly in front of a nondescript looking dive called the Bison Turf.
“The Turf” as its known by students at North Dakota State and the veterans of the USA Wrestling Cadet and Junior Nationals, is a favorite spot for students that stick around town during the breezy summer months and its also a favorite for coaches and wrestling fans to reconvene yearly.
The temperature can vary from year to year. Back in 2000, it was sweltering, with temperatures approaching 100 degrees and making coaches and wrestlers staying in NDSU dorms with no air conditioning miserable.
In 2005, the temperature is already forgiving, with a comfortable 75 degrees warming the Midwestern landscape.
But at The Turf, some already know what’s coming.
It’s not a tornado, but a firestorm of young athletes competing in six tournaments from July 23-30.
At the Stop-N-Go on the corner of 12 th Avenue and University, an unsuspecting employee comes to answer me at the counter.
“Are you ready for the bum rush?” I ask.
She looks down, noticing that I’m wearing one of my Old Dominion Wrestling t-shirts.
“Oh, are they here already?” she answers.
“They” is the rush of over 4,000 wrestlers, coaches, officials and fans that will converge on this Midwestern outpost for the next week or so.
I nod at her and walk next door, to The Turf.
The Turf has been one of my favorite spots in Fargo the last seven years. A handful of people are having lunch and I sit down and ask for a menu.
I sit two stools away from a man named Ed, a man in his late 40’s with a baseball cap and a mullet-style haircut.
I made casual conversation with him and talked about how many problems I’d had getting into Fargo this particular trip.
This place is about as much as a dive as you can get. The barstools lean to one side and it’s got a rustic feel, like something you’d see out of the movie Road House.
There are a few college students shooting darts in the far back corner as Ed watches intently at the television.
I look around.
They’re moved some things. The pool tables have been re-arranged, one’s been taken out, so there’s only two and the dart boards have been moved.
Maybe it’s the casual conversation of the locals that make Fargo that much more fun. Sure, I’ll see people that I only get to see once or twice a year and I’ll enjoy my time out with them, much like everyone else in this town over the week.
I sat down, enjoyed a buffalo burger, a Turf specialty, and turned and look at the foosball table where I’d beaten Kendall Cross two years earlier (soundly, I might add).
The burger was piping hot and immediately left a burn on the roof of my mouth and on the tip of my tongue.
The jukebox erupts, startling me and my new friend, Ed. Rock music blares across the speakers that adorn the top of the walls in the back room of The Turf.
The waitress rushes from the front, scurrying for the remote to turn down the volume.
This might be the loudest that Fargo gets on this night, but with a rush of old friends meeting together at places like The Turf, Reeb’s and of course, Buffalo Wild Wings, its sure to be tame compared to the rest of the week.
The bass shakes the barstool underneath me as I put the finishing touches on the burger and the fries that accompanied it.
“A bit salty,” I thought to myself as I finished off the buffalo.
It’s only a burger I’ve eaten three times in my life, but man oh man, is it ever good.
The college kids, not too much younger than I, still threw darts and I would be inclined to join them to throw a game, but my darts were packed in my missing luggage.
With luggage in limbo, all I could do was observe, making casual conversation with Lisa, a waitress.
“Are you ready for the bum rush?” I asked her, in the same tone I’d asked the Stop-N-Go employee.
“Oh, we’re ready for the beating,” she replied.
While this is her first summer working with the wrestling tournament in town, the management of The Turf, and restaurants all around the surrounding area are preparing.
This is going to be the calmest day before the mass convergence on Fargo is complete.
My missing bags and 18-hour layover in O’Hare International is a constant, festering annoyance, but I’ll get by, for how long it takes to get my clothing.
For the next 10 days, the Turf, like the other places, will be a meeting place, a social gathering. Today isn’t much of an exception, other than I’m actually trying to get some work done.
“Do you want another one, Ed?” Lisa asks the mullet-sporting patron.
Ed fills me in about the places over in Moorhead, a scant five minutes across the Minnesota state line.
“Coach’s is closed,” Ed tells me. “The board didn’t renew their license.”
“Bummer,” I thought.
I saw midget wrestling there last year.
Don’t be fooled, though. While Fargo isn’t an excuse to party, you must still realize, for many, this is the only vacation people get. They will work on their vacation, coaching, officiating, pairing and watching.
I make my way over to the five college kids shooting darts and playing pool. I introduce myself and ask them just a few questions about the tournament.
“Work is so going to suck,” says Katrina, an employee at North Dakota’s only Hooters.
“Why do they come to Fargo,” asks a friend.
Good question.
But the answer is less cut and dry. Sure, it’s a complete pain to try to get here – but the time spent in Fargo with new friends and old friends alike are a powerful adhesive for the wrestling community.
The quintet isn’t worried too much about the rush on their fair city, although two are waitresses at restaurants, the three guys didn’t care entirely too much, although they are aware that the rush of new people will ignite the local economy.
“Any event in Fargo, they make a big deal about it,” says Brady, a former student at NDSU.
Brad, a friend, also replies: “You know, in four summers I’ve spent here, I’ve never noticed a problem.”
Maybe it’s that kind of acceptance and friendliness that makes Fargo the ideal location for the Cadet and Junior Nationals.
Fargo is a place that’s still out of the way, a place where wrestling can be at home, on its own stage.
Sure, there’s things to do, play golf, watch some independent baseball and of course, gorge yourself on chicken wings and buffalo bites, but before the first whistle blows, the slight breeze across the North Dakota State University campus is calm and soothing – but that will all change in just a matter of hours.
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