U-Hi Wrestler Presses On Despite Many Setbacks

University wrestler Ed Pospisil was the hero of the Battle of the Bone following his upset victory against rival Central Valley a year ago.

Otherwise, enough misfortune has beset the Titan 215-pounder and his family in the last year to try even the strongest individual. Consider this list of troubles:

Pospisil had wrestled the match against CV a month after tearing a knee ligament in early January.

Prior to the season he had foregone football while helping his brother and sister shuttle their mother, Emelie, to Seattle for treatment following breast cancer surgery.

Also, last spring, Pospisil underwent surgery to repair the torn anterior cruciate ligament. Barely a month later he was hit and nearly killed while driving his 1993 Geo Metro on Bowdish to visit a friend on an April evening.

Prior to the start of school this year, his grandmother died.

Now, Pospisil is back wrestling his senior year for the Titans although presently at nowhere near the form of last season.

“It’s been one of those heart-wrenching things. I really thought midway through last season we had a chance of getting him to state,” said his coach, Don Owen. “Ed’s is a hard-luck story.”

Incredibly, Pospisil allows that the misfortune has made him stronger.

“You just keep thinking about what your goals are and don’t let anything stand in the way,” said the wrestler Owen nicknamed Popsicle. “If you have to step it up a notch, that’s what you do.”

In what Owen called a weird twist of fate, the auto accident was caused by a wrestling teammate and occurred just half a block from Owen’s home.

“We had just gotten home and I saw the lights flashing,” said Owen, who walked to the scene.

He saw the wrestler who had driven the other car sitting, head in hands, and Pospisil’s mangled vehicle.

“The car looked like an accordian,” Owen recalled. “I said, ‘you weren’t in the vehicle were you?’ He told me, ‘no, but Eddie was.”’

Pospisil had suffered a broken jaw and ribs; the turn indicator handle of the car was stuck through his arm and he had torn a nerve in his back.

His letterman’s jacket had to be cut from his body.

“I had my rehabilitation brace on my knee and it didn’t affect that,” said Pospisil.

He was told that he probably survived because of his size and remembers only waking in the hospital to his mother telling him that it wasn’t his fault.

His jaw was wired shut for eight weeks, and his weight dropped some 40 pounds before protein drinks packed it back on.

“My physical therapist said I’m the only person she’s had as a repeat customer,” he said. “I’m kind of proud of that.”

Responding to a plea from Owen, the University High student body raised more than $700 to replace the letter jacket. They presented it to him when he returned to school three weeks after the accident.

“That was pretty special,” said Pospisil, “to think there’s a group of students of that caliber.”

Now he is merely trying to become the wrestler he was before tearing the ACL last Jan. 3 at U-Hi’s Pacific Northwest Classic tournament.

“He went to take the kid down and kind of jumped to the side and blew the knee,” said Owen. “I never would have thought it could happen.”

Pospisil got a doctor’s OK to wrestle against CV where his 8-0 upset victory was instrumental in the Titan triumph.

“It took a lot of courage,” Owen said.

Pospisil competed one other time, in the Dream Duals at Auburn, Wash., before calling it a season.

“The ACL wasn’t up to snuff,” he said. “It was kind of my grand goodbye.”

Now, following his near-fatal accident, Pospisil has been limited physically, primarily because of the torn back muscle. Until last weekend’s second-place finish at the PNW tournament, mat success has been minimal.

“It’s mainly muscle memory, getting a sense of balance and position back,” he said.

If there’s one thing Pospisil has learned over the past year, it’s to press on despite the circumstances.

Owen recalled that when he was at North Idaho College a wrestler experienced similar adversity.

“We called him Hard-Luck Harrington, but Popsicle’s topped that,” said Owen. “For all he’s had to put up with, something tremendous has to happen to him.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo