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Sunday, April 16, 2000 By Lori Shontz, Post-Gazette Sports Writer
Cary Kolat made the decision so abruptly, even his wife was surprised.
One night, Erin and Cary were in Greene County over Christmas break, visiting his parents, and Cary said, "You know, I could move back," and Erin figured he meant in 20 years, or when they retired. A few days later, Erin was doing laundry when she heard Cary return from a workout at West Virginia University and tell his parents that the wrestling coach, Craig Turnbull, had given him a job.
"I about dropped everything," Erin said. "Passed out.
"But two days later we got in the Jeep and drove all the way to Wisconsin, and the very next day we got everything shut off and started to pack and rented a U-Haul, and the next day we drove back across the country."
On Jan. 8, the Kolats moved into a Westover, W.Va., townhouse that was small enough for a young married couple but big enough that Cary could invite training partners to visit.
A month later, Kolat returned to international competition for the first time since finishing a disappointing fourth at the 1999 World Wrestling Championships. He dominated his weight class at the World Cup of Wrestling, all the while swearing he was rusty.
Look at Kolat now, and there's no trace of the agony he went through six months ago, when, for the second consecutive year, he was denied a chance at a world championship under controversial circumstances. No indication of the restlessness that took him to four cities -- that's four new training sites -- in 13 months.
The only remnant of last year's turmoil? Tendinitis in the shoulder that got separated at the world championships, but that doesn't bother Kolat. "That's kind of a good sign," he said. "Because I know I've been training hard."
Which is the best sign of all.
The process of qualifying for the Olympic wrestling team starts Thursday at the U.S. National Freestyle Championships in Las Vegas. Kolat, a three-time member of the U.S. national team and two-time world medalist, is the favorite at 138.75 pounds.
A national title is crucial because the champion gets a bye in June's Olympic trials. He goes directly to the final, and the rest of the wrestlers compete in a mini-tournament for the right to face him. The two finalists then meet in a best-of-three series for the Olympic berth.
He may have struggled recently, but Kolat is ready.
"Sometimes things just happen," said Bruce Burnett, the U.S. national freestyle coach. "Cary has done a good job of overcoming them. I think that makes him stronger, because he realizes he has to be better. He is without doubt one of the toughest guys, physically and mentally, I've ever been around. He's driven.
"I think he's a candidate for an Olympic gold medal."
The public relations staff at USA Wrestling calls Kolat the best wrestler in the world without a world championship gold.
Three times in the past three seasons he has come close to winning only to have his opportunities snatched away by circumstances over which he had no control. And mistakes so egregious that he has been the impetus for change. "There have been more rule changes because of Cary Kolat," Burnett said, "than anyone I've ever been around in the sport."
In 1997, Kolat's first world championships, he came home with a silver medal. He thinks he should have won the gold; he was wearing down his Iranian opponent in the championship bout. But when the Iranian got tired, he simply untied his own shoe (out of the officials' view, of course) and then called timeout to retie the laces.
Kolat lost. And then FILA, the sport's international federation, instituted a new rule. All wrestlers had to put tape around shoelaces.
In 1998, Kolat won his second-round match over Bulgaria's Serafim Barzakov. But the Bulgarians protested, saying that Barzakov should have been awarded more points. A FILA committee went into a room and watched a videotape of the match, and when they were finished they announced that Kolat had actually lost.
Kolat settled for third after winning six consolation matches. And then FILA changed the protest procedure. No longer would a committee simply overturn a decision. If a protest were upheld, the wrestlers would re-wrestle the match.
So headed into the 1999 worlds, Kolat felt like everything was finally going his way. But the tournament was an ordeal from the start.
In his first bout, Kolat and Russia's Murad Umachanov got tangled and flew out of bounds. Kolat landed on his shoulder, which separated.
This wasn't a simple pop-it-back-into-place separation. The U.S. team's trainer said 99 percent of wrestlers would have defaulted.
Kolat, however, came back from a 5-0 deficit for a 9-6 victory. For his remaining matches, his changed his style, scoring early and holding on -- stalling, if need be -- to protect his lead. He won three more matches, one later that day by technical fall. After each victory, he retired to his hotel.
Said Burnett, "I'd go back to the room, and he'd be sitting on a bed in a sling, with ice all over his shoulder, a black eye, all those things and I'm going, 'Oh man, what a warrior.' "
Despite the pain, Kolat got himself into the semifinals against Ukraine's Elbrus Tedeev, the 1995 world champion. The bout went into overtime, with Kolat getting a late takedown for a 4-2 victory. Kolat was thrilled, not only because he had beaten a tough opponent but because he had done so with a bad shoulder.
Meanwhile, the Ukranians protested, saying an early Tedeev takedown attempt was incorrectly ruled out of bounds. The committee agreed, meaning the wrestlers had to go again -- only 30 minutes later.
"I kept thinking, 'I have to re-wrestle this like the last meeting,' " Kolat said. "But the thing is, you get a guy who just walked off the mat thinking 'I'm out' and then the coaches come back and say, 'OK, you've got another shot.' He's on cloud nine."
Kolat wasn't. Midway through the rematch, he found himself thinking, "I can't believe I have to wrestle this guy again." Which is not, obviously, the thought process of a focused wrestler.
Still, the match went to overtime before Tedeev won, 2-1. Kolat had wrestled six matches in three days with a severely separated shoulder, including a whopping 18 minutes against Tedeev in less than an hour, but had nothing to show for it.
No wonder he lost the bronze-medal match.
"I was shot," Kolat said. "I didn't care at that point. I couldn't bear to come home with another bronze. I didn't want to lose the bout, but it was like I did all this work and, for the second time, it's been taken away from me."
Erin, who didn't make the trip to Ankara, Turkey, followed the results on the Internet. When she saw her husband's semifinal victory at 4:30 a.m. she finally went to sleep, only to be awakened an hour later when Burnett called to tell her what happened. At noon that day, she talked to Cary.
"He's crying, thousands of miles away," she said. "What can you say to a person? That sucks? Sorry? Bummer? Maybe next time? There's no way to make him feel better. Just time, I think. That's what Cary does best. He's very resilient."
When Kolat finished his collegiate career, he remained in Lock Haven as an assistant coach. But three months after he and Erin married, he took a job at Lehigh. He thought it was time for a change.
Lehigh didn't feel right, so after six months, Kolat decided to move to Wisconsin. While he went to worlds, Erin and her father took two vehicles and drove 22 hours to Madison and hauled all hers and Cary's belongings up three flights of steps. They spent only three months at Wisconsin before Cary realized he didn't feel right there, either.
Not a good sign in an Olympic year, when stability and consistency become even more important.
"The biggest thing is, you start to second-guess where you are in your training," Kolat said. "If there's a hint that something goes wrong, that keeps you on edge."
And so he made one more move, to West Virginia.
The university is only 20 minutes away from his parents' home in Rices Landing. Kolat has known Turnbull since he was 8. His best friend and favorite training partner, former Penn State wrestler Sanshiro Abe, is an assistant coach at Pitt, and the two work out together often.
"With West Virginia, it wasn't about feeling comfortable," Kolat said. "I was comfortable as soon as I came in."
And with the pressures of the Olympic year bearing down, Kolat found his comfort zone not a moment too soon.
"This is the best move we've made," Erin said. "He's not at ease -- Cary's never at ease -- but he's more comfortable. I don't know how to explain it. He likes being close to his family, he grew up around here, he's known Craig since he was a little kid, it's just familiar to him.
"It's kind of where he started, and kind of where he wants to finish."
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119 pounds: No. 4 Lou Rosselli (1996 Olympian, Edinboro), No. 7 Sheldon Thomas (Clarion), No. 8 Teague Moore (NCAA champion, Oklahoma State, PIAA champion, North Allegheny)