RIDING TIME

University of Georgia teams travel with a bulldog. West Point has a mule. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Ithaca College’s wrestling team traveled with a toddler. Little Jakob Restrepo rode in the van with his dad, Carlos Restrepo ’02, a Brentwood native and IC wrestler. Carlos’s own father had gone back to his native Colombia, where Carlos was also born.

“My dad was in my life until junior high,” said Restrepo. “Other male figures had to step in and fill that void. Those are the people I could count on.”

In a place like Brentwood, it wasn’t unheard of for a high school athlete to get a girlfriend pregnant, but senior Carlos Restrepo’s story became among his coach’s favorites.

Restrepo’s high school coach, Bob Panariello ’86, himself a new dad, was still trying to figure out the whole fatherhood thing, both for his own biological child and for his wrestling son.

“My baby was just born, and pretty soon, I’m coaching a guy who’s going to have a baby, same as me,” said Panariello. The moment Restrepo learned of his girlfriend’s pregnancy, he called his mother first and his father figure, Panariello, second. Though Panariello had seen a lot of other boys drop out of high school and rush off to get jobs, he tried to sound more like a confident coach than a rookie father when he talked with Restrepo.

“Believe in something bigger,” Panariello said. “You’re a hardworking kid, and we’re going to figure this out.”

Like at Ithaca, the “we” is big in Brentwood wrestling, and Restrepo found it familiar, comforting, and later even prophetic.

“Coach said everything was going to be fine. I needed to hear that from my mom, and I needed to hear that from him,” Restrepo said. “I was definitely scared, but Coach Panariello isn’t just in your corner for matches. He’s in your corner for life.”

As Brentwood’s star senior with a college wrestling career hanging in the balance, Restrepo might have found it easy to follow in his father’s footsteps and leave his son, but it was never an option he considered. From the moment the baby was born during January of his senior year at Brentwood, Restrepo followed Panariello’s model.

“It was never a question of whether I would be there for my son,” Restrepo said. “It was a natural thing to have him there always.”

THE BRIDGE

For some fathers though, leaving isn’t a choice. KC Beach’s dad passed away when Beach was in middle school. As a Brentwood freshman, Beach had seen how those in the wrestling program had influenced senior Carlos Restrepo’s life, and soon Panariello took on that same role with Beach.

“Coach Panariello stepped in as a father figure,” Beach said. “With his lore, his mystique of being a head coach and such a respected man, I did anything he asked.”

Panariello never pushed any of his wrestlers to go to Ithaca. It was more like they were pulled there. Neither he nor Restrepo nor Beach had a family member who graduated from a four-year college, so their families didn’t have a lot of advice for them.

Panariello had coached at IC for a while after graduating, helping the Bombers—and a three-time all-American named Marty Nichols ’90—win a team national championship. Beach was told that Nichols was back at IC as head coach and that he was a great guy. At IC, too, was Beach’s old teammate Carlos Restrepo, now an all-American. Though Beach never visited IC—hadn’t even seen pictures—he wanted in. The mediocre student applied to only one school—and received only one rejection letter.

Luckily, the descriptions of this mythic place kept it more alluring than elusive, so a recharged Beach went to Nassau Community College to get his grades up, certain that he’d get another shot at Ithaca. Coach Panariello had gone to IC, and so had the Brentwood coach before him. If your father and grandfather and brother had gone to the same college, it would probably become your legacy, too.

LET SLEEPING BOYS LIE

Young Jakob Restrepo wearing his dad's wrestling uniform. Photo submitted

At IC, Restrepo found himself busy with work of all kinds. His most important jobs were father, student, and wrestler, usually but not always in that order. Every other job was tied for a distant fourth—many means to one end: feeding his young family. His résumé was like a wrestling mat, wide but not very deep. Overnight shifts at a donut shop. Stints at Kmart and Wegmans. He did construction and landscaping and even slung pizzas at Big Al’s gas station. At times, Restrepo’s IC wrestling coach, Marty Nichols, guided him on how to negotiate better hours or a little more pay.

With so many things to do and so little time to do them, Restrepo became good at napping. And like his dad, young Jakob Restrepo also got used to sleeping at odd times and in odd locations. It could be at a study session, in a practice room, or even at a national tournament. IC coaches, fans, or teammates took turns watching Jakob. He was never among strangers. Sometimes it takes a village to raise a child. Sometimes it takes a team.

After graduation, that philosophy would take Restrepo back to Brentwood, where two other boys needed him.

RISE OF THE MOURNING SON

KC Beach '05. Photo by Adam Baker

KC Beach still knows the call came in at exactly 8 a.m. on January 26 of his senior year at IC. He also knows that his mom held on for exactly as long as it would take him to drive from Ithaca to Long Island.

“I want to think she waited for me,” he said. “As soon as I arrived there, I got to say good-bye and then she passed away.”

The mother who helped him grieve his father was now gone, too.

“I was a mess, and I called Coach Nichols,” Beach said. “He told me to take the time that I needed.”

The senior had worked so hard to get to Ithaca, and now, on the eve of the last major tournament of his career, it all seemed lost, maybe even unimportant by comparison. He needed to help his siblings, to run a house, even to plan his mother’s funeral.

“My team needed me, but my family needed me more,” Beach said. His plan was to take the year off.

Teammates called. Grieving his absence and grieving for him, few could find the words. They weren’t sure what to say, but they were sure what to do. When they travel as a group, IC’s imposing wrestlers are used to commanding attention, but when the team left their bus and walked quietly into Mrs. Beach’s funeral, heads that hung in grief looked up.

“They just surrounded me,” Beach recalled. “That was my other family.”

They had taken up a collection to help him with some of the house bills. But in this situation, even Coach Nichols was at a loss. Doctors and trainers can tell you when—or if—an injured wrestler is ready to come back to the mat, but none of Nichols’s wrestlers had ever been hurt like Beach.

After a few weeks, Coach Panariello called Beach just to check in.

“Your mom would want you to finish,” Beach’s former Brentwood coach said. “You have a couple of weeks of your senior season left.”

Panariello said, “There’s always going to be someone looking out for you, always guys to give you advice, whether you want it or not. I may not be your mother. I may not be your father. But I will be a guiding piece in your life if you stay with us.”

And Beach is glad he listened to his coach. A week before conferences, he returned to the team.

“In my mind, I was taking the easy way out,” he said. “The great men in my life, those great influences, were there again, guiding me in the right direction.”

He credits his family in Brentwood and his family in Ithaca for his return. He graduated on time, and despite having other job offers, he committed to go back to Brentwood.

The Gomez-Perez boys were waiting for him.

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