Jan. 1, 2006: The Salt Lake Tribune

Prep Wrestling: The Great Match
by Jay Drew

In rural Millard County, few things are as big as high school wrestling, and fewer things, still, are as big as the night when Millard and Delta high schools clash. On Dec. 15, the historic rivals came together for a rare dual meet - bad blood and poor sportsmanship had forced the series to be abandoned for a time — at an 80-year-old facility in Fillmore. The gym was loud and full.

Parents faced each other across the mat. "Millard Eagles!" one side shouted. "Delta Rabbits!" answered the other. The man who molded both schools into
wrestling dynasties sat in attendance.

And it came down to the last bout ....

FILLMORE — Jonathan Lovell meant absolutely no disrespect by it, but there was not much else he could do. The bathroom down the hallway from Millard High's gymnasium was too far away, and a few desperate seconds of searching yielded no trash can in sight.

So Lovell rested his sinewy arms on a drinking fountain, bent over, and gave up everything he had to the stainless steel drain. The 160-pound wrestler from Delta then backed up a few steps, wiped his face and arms with a towel and slumped against a cold wall, the adrenaline that had carried him only minutes before on the mat having been replaced by sheer fatigue.

Life had never been so good.

"I just beat a kid from Millard," Lovell whispered.

On the other side of the wall and bleachers, Delta's Wacey Jenkins was not faring as well. The roar told Lovell all he needed to know: Jenkins had lost to Millard's Cade Hunter, an assistant coach's son blessed with otherworldly courage and drive to make up for a thimble-full of athleticism.

"Tons of pressure. Tons of pressure," Lovell grunted. "[Jenkins] gave it his all. It's Millard, and when coach tells you to reach into your gut bucket, you do it."

Lights, Action

It was more dark than usual in Fillmore this cold December night, despite a smattering of Christmas lights draped on century-old homes and the constant stream of headlights turning off Main Street onto the appropriately named Eagle Avenue, toward the 80-year-old school. Perhaps that is because all the electricity in the county on Dec. 15 had packed into Millard's gym, an ordinary looking recreation center that on this night was anything but normal.

Power, after all, is the life-giving and job-supplying force that gives a common bond to these tiny and football-wrestling-mad communities of Delta, Fillmore, Scipio, Lynndyl, Hinckley, Oak City, Leamington, Meadow and Kanosh in rural central Utah. Your boys lose on Thursday night, and work the next day at the massive Intermountain Power Plant and Generating Station just northeast of Delta - or the mushroom farm outside of Fillmore — is pure misery.

"I've heard of some massive side wagers made there," said Millard's new coach, Blake Turner.

Not even the presence of Olympic gold medalist Rulon Gardner, at the town's library to promote his new book, could overshadow the building excitement. A half-hour before the 7 p.m. main event, Gardner was left wondering where everyone had gone.

After probably the longest junior varsity meet ever held, something like 25 bouts, and after a 15-foot banner that simply said "Kill the Rabbits" was taken down, Millard's varsity wrestlers sprinted into the gym one-by-one to an ear-splitting, WWF-style introduction from assistant coach and shop teacher Ben Hunter — a spotlight and music-filled production that could put most school plays to shame.

Millard principal Dennis Alldredge turned to a visitor. "Now," he declared, "this is small-town wrasslin.' "

Porter Power

For dual meets, a drawing is held to determine which bout leads off, and on this night it was fitting that Delta freshman Skyler Porter was one of the first boys on the mat, at 135 pounds. For if there is a name synonymous with football and wrestling in Millard County, it is Porter.

Skyler's grandfather, Jim Porter, was Delta's first state wrestling champion, in 1951, and he repeated in '52 under coach Bruce Osborne, the man generally credited for turning the area into a wrestling haven.

After a standout athletic career at Brigham Young, Porter returned to the town to coach wrestling and football. He became the head wrestling coach in '62, and went eight years without losing a dual meet. He won five straight state championships from 1963-67.

In the early 1990s, Porter, a hay and alfalfa farmer, came out of retirement to coach wrestling at Millard, of all places, a decision that still doesn't set well with many old-timers.

A small-school football powerhouse for much of its first 50 years, Millard had tasted some success in wrestling, but not much. Porter changed that, taking over a program that finished almost dead last at state in 1991. He guided the Eagles to a second-place finish in 1993 and their first state championship in 40 years in 1994.

Porter yielded to Marshall Sheriff the following year, and the new coach led the Eagles to six state championships in eight years before stepping down last winter.

"We got kids involved who were little nobodies," Porter said. "Wrestling has done wonderful things for both communities."

It was with that pedigree and pressure that 14-year-old Skyler Porter opened what Millard residents call "the Delta Dual" against Millard's Quincy Thatcher, fourth-place finisher at last year's state meet. Porter won 10-4 to give Delta a 3-0 lead, seemingly insignificant points until they were all added up at the end.

"I'm just glad I wasn't in the last match," he said. "I was shaking the whole way through."

On the Same Mat

Delta wrestling and football coach Russ Henrie and Sheriff, who remains Millard's football coach, are best friends. They grew up together in Delta, played football and wrestled together, and were even college roommates at Weber State. They talk weekly, if not more frequently.

But until this year, their teams rarely played each other, despite being separated by just 37 miles, a relatively short distance for Utah's rural schools that routinely travel three to four hours for games.

So it was by no small coincidence that Millard, a Class 2-A school, and Delta, a 3-A school with twice as many students (464 to 231), met on the mats in the middle of December. The schools also met in football last fall — a 35-15 Delta win — for the first time since 1992.

Although there is no official record or minutes regarding the directive, coaches at both schools say they were more or less commanded by the Millard County School Board to start playing each other again - regardless of the bad blood that existed between the communities because of some heated and even violence-filled sporting events that took place in the 1980s and early 1990s.

"Years ago, it got to be really mean," Henrie said. "Car windows were smashed, fights broke out all the time and they would hang dead rabbits on stop signs between here and Fillmore. Of course, we were just as mean as they were. It got really unhealthy."

In 1993, Delta, experiencing a population boom brought on by the power plant - nearly 45 percent of the power it generates goes to the city of Los Angeles - was moved out of 2-A and into 3-A. More importantly, it gave the schools a good excuse not to play each other, because now they were in separate leagues.

An ax symbolizing the rivalry that was traded between the schools after football and wrestling victories was lost, and to this day Henrie says nobody knows where it is.

But because of the friendship between Sheriff and Henrie, the schools have found their rivalry again. It is still fierce but much healthier now, according to most involved.

Man of Steele

Healthy is a word Delta senior Trent Steele can't hear enough. Overcoming childhood leukemia will do that to a guy.

Steele's parents, Michelle and Jeff, a power plant employee, got the bad news when their son was 3. Trent underwent chemotherapy treatments for 3 1/2 years, and by the time he was 7, he was "completely cured," he said.

The disease took its toll, but it also put a resolve into the young man that manifests itself in wrestling and football, where he's an all-state noseguard.

"My muscles were so deteriorated [during chemotherapy] that my parents had to carry me around. I couldn't even walk," Trent said. "And I remember a lot of shots. To this day, I am still terrified of shots."

A bit of that terror confronted Steele as he stood across the mat on this night, staring down Millard's Chris Glascock as the 215-pound bout was about to begin.

Sure, Steele was a state champion last year at 215, and Glascock was a relative newcomer to the sport, but the Rabbits were reeling.

Their 15-0 lead built on decisions by Porter, Cody Maxfield, Jeremy Evans and Derrick Anderson had dwindled to 15-9, thanks to Hunter's win over Jenkins and Millard's T.J. Robbins' pin of Jared Bradfield, good for six points in the team race.