From Indiana to Istanbul

Four Red Devil wrestlers head to Turkey on a once-in-a-lifetime cultural exchange

By KEVIN HARRIS

Four Jeffersonville High School wrestlers are about to embark on a trip of a lifetime.

And they had to work extremely hard to make this journey possible.

For the past several months, A.J. Castro, Marcus Fridley, Richard Hayes and Dominique Smith have raised $10,000 to go on a cultural exchange trip to Turkey. The trip is sponsored by the Indiana State Wrestling Association and USA Wrestling.

Jeff High wrestling coach Danny Struck nominated the four grapplers to go on the trip along with several wrestlers throughout Indiana.

“These are kids that I have never had a problem with sportsmanship-wise,” said Struck, who will also be going to Turkey along with his wife Dawn and Jeff resident and St. Xavier student Chip Condon. “They’re kids that have earned the honor of going. Most of them are the type of kids that have 100 percent attendance at school and at wrestling practice. They’re kids who I know that won’t go to cause a scene. Besides all that, they are good wrestlers.”

The Red Devil quartet had to do a bunch of jobs to earn the funds. That included landscaping projects, cleaning horse stables, painting houses and barns and farming. The kids even spent three to four days planting a field of potatoes at the Charlestown farm of Jeff High teacher Frank Denton.

They have also held numerous fund-raisers like car washes, a yard sale and a pancake breakfast.

“We worked on a farm for about a week, pulling weeds and bailing hay and stuff,” Smith said.

Despite getting fatigued, Fridley said he and his teammates needed to do the jobs and the fund-raisers to get the necessary funds for the trip.

“It was just exhausting,” Fridley said. “We did everything — farming, cutting grass, pulling weeds. Everything that you can think (in regards) to landscaping, we’ve done. But overall those things really helped us out because the landscaping and working on the farm each paid good money.”

Struck said his wrestlers had to sacrifice their weekends to raise enough money for their trip.

“It was an every-day, nearly 24-hour-a-day job,” Struck said. “They have not had a Saturday or Sunday off of fund-raising for five weeks. They’ve been working a lot of 10-hour days, seven days a week. Then after we get home, many times the parents or my wife would spend time calling more people saying, ‘Can we mow your grass? Can we chop your trees down?’”

The trip will begin on Friday when the four Red Devils will head to Chicago to practice and take a tour of the Windy City. On Saturday, they will take a flight out of O’Hare International Airport to London that will last about 13 hours and 45 minutes.

Once the wrestlers land in London on Sunday morning, they will wait three hours to take an approximate five-hour flight to Istanbul, Turkey. On Sunday evening, they will board another flight from Istanbul to Izmir, Turkey. The grapplers will stay in Turkey until July 10.

During their stay in Turkey, the wrestlers will compete in three meets in Istanbul, Izmir and Bursa, Turkey, and they know they will have their work cut out for them.

Wrestling is considered a national pastime in Turkey. The Jeff wrestlers know how skilled Turkish wrestlers are as they have faced each other in exhibition matches at Jeff High the past three years. Team Jeff Wrestling Club, which all four Red Devils compete in, faced the Turkish National Team in 2003 and 2004 and a team from Bursa in 2005.

“They’re good. They’ve been wrestling since they were (ages) 2 or 3. They grew up on wrestling,” Fridley said. “It’s just surprising how good they are in wrestling.”

“A lot of people over there are world champions or city champions,” Hayes said.

In the meantime, they will do some sightseeing of the historic country and experience Turkish culture.

“I’m real excited,” Hayes said. “It’s a great opportunity to meet new people, learn about other cultures and how to eat other foods.”

Smith is looking forward to another chance to travel abroad. He went on a cultural exchange trip to Japan last year.

“I just want to see how they live and how their culture is different from ours,” Smith said. “You read about it in books, but it’s different when you experience it face to face.”

Text Only | Photo Reprints