Wrestler Squares Off, For His Mom
It was a sight perhaps never before witnessed at a high school wrestling match.
Oblivious to the commotion on the mats, Adam Sonduck, a 218-pound varsity wrestler for Spokane’s Shadle Park High, spent his free time hand-stitching the borders of a quilt he was making for his mom.
“Some of the guys were giving it to me,” says Sonduck of the razzing he took several weeks ago during a meet in Sandpoint.
A parent “said he wanted to put a wig on me and have me sit in a big rocker and pose for a picture. But I was running out of time to get my quilt finished for sewing class.”
Even in this so-called enlightened age, you won’t find high school boys lining up to take sewing class.
Sonduck, a 19-year-old senior, is not just any young man, and therein lies the tale.
To his classmates, Adam is simply “Duck” for short. He liked the nickname enough to have it tattooed in old English lettering across the top of his brawny back.
Duck is a self-assured lad who doesn’t waste energy fretting about what other kids might think of him.
His quest to make a quilt for his mother began last year. Nancy Sonduck had always wanted to make a quilt from her son’s old T-shirts stored in the basement of their North Side home.
Arthritis made this dream more unlikely with each passing year. So Duck one day decided to do it for her.
He signed up for Lois Carpenter’s sewing class and found himself in a room full of girls.
Duck let the remarks from his friends roll off his solid shoulders. “I wasn’t too worried about it,” he says with an affable shrug. “I’m a pretty big guy.”
And a pretty fine quilter, too.
Bordered with Shadle colors, yellow and green, the quilt is beautifully designed with a black trellis and squares of red, blue, purple and green. The quilt has been on display in a glass cabinet near the high school’s administrative offices.
“I was amazed,” says Carpenter, who has taught sewing for 30 years. As he got further into the project, “students would step in and give him all kinds of compliments.”
In the prairie home tradition, Duck’s creation offers a story of his life. There is the Ghost Busters shirt he wore, for example, and the Camp Reed T-shirt he got one summer when he sold enough toffee to attend.
One embroidered square says it all: “To Mom, thanks for your love and support.”
Life wasn’t always so easy for Duck, and therein lies the rest of the tale.
When he arrived at Shadle as a freshman, he was out of control. He forged notes to skip school. He let his fists fly at the slightest provocation.
Duck says his rage was such that he would experience blackouts, not remembering the fights he would get into.
His mother insisted he take anger management classes. He joined the wrestling team. Slowly, Duck began to change.
“It’s truly inspiring,” says Shadle Principal Emmett Arndt.
“He’s come a long ways. He’s such a role model for students.”
Duck isn’t the greatest wrestler, but at 15-6 he’s having his best year. Whenever he steps onto the mat, friends yell “quack, quack” to cheer him on.
A certified nurse’s assistant, Duck works part time in a care center for the elderly. After high school, Duck says, he would like to become a paramedic or a cop.
Perhaps the greatest tribute to this remarkable kid came from the father of a University High School wrestler whom Duck pinned.
The kid was a freshman and obviously terrified. Older, stronger and quicker, Duck took care of him in short order. Then after the match, Duck congratulated his vanquished foe and told him not to give up.
“Of all things that sports should teach our young people, pride and class should be at the top of the list,” wrote the father. “Your 215-pounder last night demonstrated all of those fine characteristics.
“He treated my son with a great deal of dignity and respect.”
So that’s the story of a kid called Duck.
“If you can be the best you can be, it’s the greatest feeling on Earth,” he says.
“You’ve got to try. You’ll never get anywhere if you live life being afraid of what other people think.”